Patience is a Virtue, Just Not One of Mine

We moved into our new house in December 2022 and were eager to start seedlings inside so that we could get flowers in the ground as soon as possible after the last frost. The original game plan had been to be in a new house by fall so that we could start cool season flowers to overwinter and be ready in the early spring. But, alas, the best laid plans went awry with a very tight housing market and a lot of trouble finding a place to buy.

So, we found ourselves in the position where we started seeding inside in late February with the goal of planting outside in mid-April for blooms by late May. Hurrah! We planted three types of flowers for our first go at cool season annuals, starting with some of the more foolproof varieties: snapdragons, rudbeckia, and calendula. By the end of March, we had trays and trays of seedlings under grow lights, watering each night, and starting new seed trays each weekend.

Our plans got delayed a bit and we ended up getting plants in the ground weeks later than we had hoped to.  But—to my excitement—we had calendulas popping up almost immediately. Bright orange and yellow blooms were the first sign that maybe, just maybe, we were going to be able to grow flowers.

I eagerly waited for the snapdragons and rudbeckia to show their flowers. I waited. And waited. And while the weather was cool, it did turn sunnier, but my mood got darker as I was sure we were going to get zero snapdragons. In my mind, that meant, of course, that we couldn’t make a go out of flower farming because obviously we weren’t able to grow even “easy” flowers. The typical “time to bloom” came and went and still no snaps.

I basically gave up on the snapdragons. As the spring progressed and we headed toward Memorial Day, I walked up to the farm and cut bloom after bloom of calendulas, walked lovingly past the sunflowers starting to bloom, and marveled at the young celosia and zinnia plants making their way out of the ground. 

And, there, in the middle row were hundreds of snapdragon plants, very green, looking very lush, but with no blooms or even the beginning of blooms. I pointedly ignored them. I stopped pulling weeds, figuring we were going to be pulling up the whole crop soon enough to put in our second succession of zinnias. I was done with snapdragons.

And then one morning I walked up to the rows and saw these pops of color I had never seen before. Dark purple snapdragon blooms burst from a handful of strong stems.  Pink blooms were beginning to peak out and I saw hints of yellow bursts.  Over the next few days—and several weeks after we were “supposed” to get snapdragons—we had a half row of lovely snaps in purple, pink, white, and yellow.

In all my impatience and irritation at the snapdragons not being on schedule, I had forgotten that we had had an exceptionally cold, gray, and windy spring. Roadside wildflowers that typically popped in mid spring were delayed. I hadn’t even switched out winter clothes for summer clothes until well into May.

But the sun finally shone and the snapdragons finally appeared. Patience, Lisa, patience. Things sometimes take longer than you want but they take as long as they need to.

I figured we wouldn’t have the snapdragons for long, as the cool, windy spring shifted into a blazing hot summer in lightening speed. But I was wrong about that, too, as we were able to cut beautiful snapdragon blooms right up until mid-July. And I have maybe learned a little about patience.