When peonies start to grow each spring they start out as blood red little alien hands reaching out of the earth.
They grow taller and leafier and green. The leaves from each stalk stick out far and push the other ones away to make room. Eventually, perfectly spherical bulbs peek out from what was once those freaky little hands and start to swell.
If you don’t set up a wire cone for support around the peonies early on, they will splay out and droop as the buds and blooms get heavier. When they’re ready they unfurl over the course of a few hours: dense, plush petals. The petals closest to the center are stained red at the edges.
The first season I lived with peonies, I set up no such support system. I watched the flowers bloom and sag, grazing against the dirt, too afraid to cut them and separate them from their roots.
The next season I carefully set up a wire cone once the alien hands emerged. Every day I tended to them, tucking new growth under the wire, knowing there was no bending once grown, no going back.
I never moved the cage from last season so I hoped the peonies would just find their way back into the support system. They didn’t. I didn’t pay attention during a week of crucial growth and the most of the plant grew outside the rings; only a few stalks made it inside. I’ve been cutting the blooms as soon as they open to save them from dragging.
Wisteria, on the other hand, have a skeleton. They don’t start over from the earth each season; they reawaken from thick woody branches.
Wisteria are smart. They know when certain branches no longer serve them, or are not worth supporting. They just stop sending life there, and the dead branches dry out and snap right off. But they still need help dropping the dead weight. I spent weeks one winter snapping branches off wherever it’d let me, weaving the longer, bendy, dormant branches into each other for support.
That led to the most beautiful and fullest bloom the vine has ever had. It grew so wildly that season that I became intimidated by its life force. I haven’t had the patience or courage to prune it as diligently as I did that season and it hasn’t bloomed again since. I have been afraid: What if I go too far? What if it doesn’t grow back?
So right now the wisteria is looking incredibly dead, but the leaves are just starting to come in. What I thought was a big chop this winter wasn’t big enough. So many cuts I made revealed green flesh right under the bark. I wasn’t patient enough to find just the dead pieces because they were so woven into the rest of the branches, because I let the plant’s growth go unmanaged for a few years.
But it always comes in last and it always comes in lush and fearsome, even if without flowers. It’ll be fine. Don’t forget to tend to your garden.