The yard is awash in daffodils. After a long, late autumn and a very late spring, here they are flaunting their variety and splendor, ruffled and bumptious, nosing their trumpets in each other’s faces like cheerful gossips. It’s warm enough to open the window, and the scent of the daffodils blows in.

Daffodils are the clear choice for spring bulbs here, because we have lots of deer. Deer eat tulips, not daffodils. You could plant tulips anyway, curse the deer as the tulips are beheaded and trampled, and join the vast army of trolls contributing only negative comments to the social enterprise. Catastrophizing. Getting so pumped from your own outrage that you lose sight of any flowers, at all.

There is so much of that around today, and it is so dispiriting to see us all blasting accusations at each other, without regard to how the plain truth looks different to a deer than to a gardener. Channel your outrage, and don’t let it derail your investigation into true causes. Lots of things can go wrong in a garden. Be sure you’re fixing the right problem.

Then you can dig out the failures, and put in something bright and healthy that will succeed.