Serendipity & Sorrel

A whopper container on our deck has somehow become a buffet for wild things.

It started out innocently enough as a pot full of violas and pansies. They were the first deck flowers of the growing season, strategically placed where I could see them from the kitchen window.

As the garden marched into summer, however, the pansies were tucked into other pots so they could struggle through the heat out of sight until cooler temperatures return. The heartier violas were bunched along half the rim like a crown.

Empty space…

It became a handy spot to put the extra marigolds that didn’t quite fit into the other pots so designated for their species. Then, there was a sweet potato vine left over from the inn where I am working these days. (This sea change will be another blog post for those readers who are keeping score…)

A purple sweet alyssum arrived with a whiff of nostalgia that struck while I was walking through Lowe’s. (They grew in the gravel driveway of my early-childhood home. Self sowing over the decades, they were still there when my husband and I made a visit the year I turned 30 and the new owners allowed us to roam the exterior. I hope they — the flowers, not the rather slap-dash new owners — remain.)

The resulting mash up is not the kind of pretty I prefer — clusters of single species that bring a sense of control to the willy-nilly of a cottage garden. But — a cottage garden all by itself — it tucks well enough into the exhuberant grouping of annuals, house plants, tomatoes and herbs that summers on the deck.

The bees like it. So, do the hummingbirds and other feathered friends who like to sip water and take splashy baths in a terracotta dish that is tucked into Dr. Suess-like fronds of one massive specimen.

But, this week, I noticed the potluck pot has taken on a life of its own. There’s yellow wood sorrel, a lemony edible that resembles clover growing to one side. It’s technically a “weed,” but has pretty yellow flowers and the leaves are tasty in salads.

My first instinct was to yank it. It didn’t belong.

But, mid-life me, mom-of-young-adults me has learned that control is more illusion than reality and is, frankly, overrated. Spaces open, spaces fill. And, wherever the grace of God is welcomed, it all works together for good.

“Meh,” I said to the sorrel, shrugging and watering it like it came with a pot, price tag and pedigree. It bobbed and nodded in the unexpected sprinkle as if it knew from the start that it was going to stay.

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