People are complicated, come from different backgrounds, and have different experiences, so there are many things to disagree about. Argument is a perfectly legitimate form of human communication. Violence is not, yet we seem to go there all the time. There are more sad news stories today than I can, or want to, recount. I went to the garden for solace and there I found the bleeding hearts still blooming. Bleeding hearts came to North America from China, where they’re called purse peonies. Different ways of looking at things.

I still have a few regular peonies, too. Earlier this month the large and beautiful peony garden in Ann Arbor was assaulted, hundreds of its innocent flowers cut off and thrown to the ground. Flyers left behind announced this as a political act but it looked like spite. Did someone really expect the fallen flowers would bring allies to their cause?

The garden is much better at forming alliances. Here’s a bumblebee visiting my baptisia, where she will use her weight to open the flower, something smaller bees can’t do. Baptisia and bumblebees have worked out a deal. No manifestos were created, no weapons fired, the bee presumably her own ambassador.

The milkweed, still in bud, has a deal with monarch butterflies. When it blooms they’ll pollinate it, and in return its leaves will supply munching monarch caterpillars with a poison that keeps predators away, an alliance of mutual benefit. Poison can be considered a weapon, but for the monarch the point is deterrence. There is no wisdom in the mutually assured destruction of having your predator die after it eats you. 

There’s certainly struggle in the garden. The ferns have moved in so far onto the path through the woods, I’m going to have to pull some out. But when I do I’ll transplant them to the front yard, under the pine trees. I expect they will thrive in the mulchy shade there, where the grass is unhappy. Plants, like people, have different needs, sometimes hard to figure out. The least we can do is try.