Grape hyacinths

摘要

These little blue jewels bring early spring delight to the garden. Not far from my home, there's a meadow that becomes misted blue with grape hyacinth (Muscari spp. and cvs.) every April. One of my neighbors photographed, enlarged, and framed the bucolic panorama to hang over his fireplace, a tribute to one of the reliable though ephemeral splendors of spring. When he died a few years ago, his wife arranged for him to be buried in the cemetery that overlooks the exquisite scene he'd so treasured. Ilearned that the original title-holders of that property tried to oust the beautiful but poisonous bulbs from their cow pasture, even to the point of stripping the field of turf, apparently without much success. So the present display, embroidering several acres, has been colonizing unchallenged for only about 25 years. Nowadays horses graze there, respectfully coexisting, implying perhaps that horses have an aesthetic sense as well as an appreciation for the sublime.