Three Attempts
Tomilyn Hannah Rupert
2021
The tree in front of the house has been brought down by chainsaws and a man in a harness that seemed insufficient. It leaves a gaping blank, the building revealed, the soot from the A2 settled heavy on the trim (was it ever white, or was it cream? Impossible to tell now). The neighbors in the building happy for a multitude of reasons, the neighbors passing by in mourning for the big sycamore.
We build a box of wood in the back, paint it black, carry it with the help of friends to the front of the house. Fill it with bags and bags of soil and compost, still unsure if there’s a difference or they can be synonymous. I decide to go for flowers in every shade of white and cream that I can find, with the goal of something blooming in every single month. Camellia in winter, two types. Clover. A fuschia without fuschia, a lavender that isn’t lavender, tulips, daffodils, woodruff, and hyacinth.
And a lily, marked skyscraper.
The bulb is easy to bury, easier than anything I’ve planted out back. Instead of the clay soil and buried rubbish from the long life of the back garden, it’s just freshly poured dirt, practically fluffy. Everything else has multiples, but there’s only one lily bulb. The tulip mania is that bit of history everyone knows, when speculation ran rampant, but three hundred years later, it is lilies that demand the higher price tag.
Once in the ground, or rather, the box atop the ground, it becomes neglected. The idea of planting perennials that they’d just take care of it themselves. I pick out large pieces of litter blown in from the road, and when it seems like it’s been exceptionally dry for long enough, I toss the mop bucket water over the whole thing.
The lily sprouts. Shiny dark green leaves grow high and higher, and I began to feel like Jack and the Beanstalk, as it grows up and up, before it finally settles about two feet high. The flower buds swell, and in August they begin to open, yellow painted in thick streaks on the petals, more colorful than anything else that’s bloomed, and stamens a bloody burgundy.
It stops pedestrian traffic, we huddle at my husband’s desk, the only place with a view from the basement to the front where we can watch passerby take photos with the lily. There are multiple blooms on the single stem. A front garden is for sharing, for providing pleasure to those who are observing. A contribution to the neighborhood we rhapsodize to ourselves about ourselves.
The glory lasts five days. One morning we wake up, and even in rushing out the house for the dog walk, it is impossible to not notice the gap. There are clumps of dirt on the pavement, a trail that goes cold by the time two buildings are passed. In the planter box is a hole, short woodruff green around the circumference.
We speculate. Was it premeditated, did someone bring a shovel? Did the bulb just come up as it was yanked out by the stem, a young paramor who impulsively wanted to bring his girlfriend a present? No one stops to look at the garden as they go past anymore.
2022
The next year we revert to selfishness. Lilium chill out is sold out, but I find other varieties of tall lilies, and we stand in the back garden thinking where we could dig a hole. In the back garden there are different enemies. There are foxes and cats and squirrels. There is the lack of an outside tap and the British summer. There is bindweed and ivy. There is still blown-in trash and grime from the tailpipes and the tires passing on the A2 that floats high above fences.
We dig holes, and plant more bulbs, three this time.
The weather turns hot in spring. We feel the lack of rain. Our efforts instead fill water cans in the bathtub and kitchen sink, carrying them through the flat, and spending them only on the fruit trees planted the year before, coddling. If only one thing can survive, we do not pick the lilies.
One we never see sight of again, no shiny green leaves. One my husband weeds, not recognising the foliage. He replants it but the damage has been done, it never grows more leaves. We lose sight of it again, it nurtures creeping violet and clumps of sage our neighbor has given us.
And one grows strong, and flowers. The next day we have a surprise storm. It batters the petals right off.
The leaves stay all summer though, a tall glossy stalk. Blind.
2023
The bulbs arrive in January, a belated Hanukkah gift. Bulbs should be planted in spring or autumn, and not the dead of winter after a week with below freezing evening temperatures. The cardboard box arrives just before I head out. I place it on the blue tablecloth covering our veneer table, and I come back that evening to most of the bulbs shredded. Our dog looks unbothered: she has already forgotten her misdeed.
We spend the night monitoring her for signs of poisoning. Anxious. Cognisant of leaving poison out like a place setting. Her snores and dreams are unchanged, the noise of her breathing dominates the bedroom like any normal evening.
The scene of the crime is the shredded bulbs, only two seem likely to survive. We bury them in the back garden, grateful the soil isn’t frozen. Clustering near the roses. Still unclear on what to do, soil type, depth. All of that. At some point, just winging it doesn’t count.
For the rest we collect the now garlic clove size shreds of lily, gather them. Nestle them gently into a small pot, sift houseplant compost on top of them, and drip water till it seems soaked. We place the pot in the kitchen windowsill, above the sink next to the dead chili pepper plant, and wait and hope.
It doesn’t bloom.
