Of Tulips and Letting Go

In the fall of 2023, I purchased a package of twenty-four tulip bulbs from White Flower Farm. I planted them in the mid-November chill of Mid Coast Maine, hoping they would grace my front yard with some cheerful color come spring. Tulips and daffodils, like every other perennial, are always a risk in our frigid northern climate. I lose several plants yearly, no matter how carefully I bed them down for the winter. As I planted the bulbs, I remember saying to myself and others, “If this doesn’t work out, that’s it; no more attempts at my advanced age to improve the garden.”

Spring comes late in Maine, and I expectantly examined the front garden for weeks in April before I noticed the tiniest of green shoots poking through the brown soil. The steadily growing leaves, coaxed on by days of drenching rain and the occasional few hours of sunshine, cheered me tremendously. Leaves but no stems, though. My experience with daffodils has been that after the first year of blooms, I usually get nothing but leaves in subsequent years, no flowers. I feared the tulips would go the way of the daffs. But no, gradually, hearty green stems with tightly sealed blossoms shot up from the parting leaves. I counted. All twenty-four bulbs had produced a bud. I was amazed and gratified. Now, all I had to do was wait until the sunshine coaxed the buds into bloom. Or so I thought.

This spring, my household hosted a family of four chipmunks on and under our patio. We, the cats, and the dog watched, mesmerized as they scampered around, under, and over the patio furniture with acorns stuffed in their cheeks. They dug a neat burrow at the edge of a flower bed and, we imagined, created a warren of tunnels beneath it with living, pantry, and sleeping quarters branching off the main thoroughfare. These fantasies tickled us. Mom, Dad, and the two kids settled into their new home, slithering in and out of it many times a minute. We were delighted with their antics and those of their cousins, the grey squirrels, who are also abundant this spring. Last year was a mast year (a boom season) for acorns, so squirrels and chipmunks multiplied exponentially. Our side garden was a rodent carnival.

Meanwhile, out front, I noticed, one by one, the unopened tulip blossoms disappear, and their green leaves torn and tattered. Oh no! It must be the chipmunks and squirrels! But they don’t eat all tulips, apparently, because my neighbor’s yard was a riot of red, orange, and yellow flowers, as were many other gardens in our community. My heart sank. After all that work, waiting, and hoping, these entertaining little creatures, without regard for human labor, had stolen my joy.

I gave myself a little talking to: “They’re just flowers, they’re ephemeral anyway. They weren’t that expensive, so the loss is no big deal. You told yourself if this didn’t work, you wouldn’t try again, so just let it go!” Nevertheless, I googled how to prevent squirrels from eating tulips and found a recommendation to try cayenne pepper. We had none in the house, so I sprinkled red pepper flakes around the base of each plant instead. Completely ineffective. 

Having given up on a riot of color like my neighbor’s, I considered how I might redeem the situation. I know so little about flowers and gardening that I had no idea what might happen if I cut the few remaining tightly closed tulip flowers and put them in water indoors. Even this modest experiment was fraught with risk. One of our cats eats flowers, so I had to hide my vase with the unopened tulips in the bathroom. Talk about letting go of my dream of a pretty bed of tulips in the front garden! I was making do with a few tiny green buds on the bathroom vanity behind a closed door. But somehow, the joy was just as sweet when I opened the door to these delicate blooms one morning.

This experience, in all its silly simplicity, speaks to me of the wisdom of letting go. Because so much is beyond our control and everything is constantly changing, creating any plan, investing any effort, and expecting or hoping for any particular outcome are risky business. We do all three continually, of course; they come as naturally as breathing. However, the pervasive visceral tension we carry proves that we live in a constant state of risk—risk of loss, failure, or disappointment. Any time we wake up to this reality is a moment of potential change. Missing tulip blossoms can speak to us of the groundlessness of our existence. They may carry the gift-wrapped message of surrender. Opening a bathroom door to behold pale reflections of pink and white flowers can offer a lesson in revision and redemption.

And how closely married are delight and destructiveness – chipmunk and squirrel antics on one side of the coin and flower devastation on the other. Imagine the deliciousness of tulip petals to a squirrel’s palate! Consider my sober, reasonable resolution not to waste time and money planting tulips again. The whole funny, frustrating, messy situation can be profoundly instructive if I let go and let it be so.

We never know what exquisite new vista the portal of disappointment will offer us or what ultimate peace might issue from the surrender of letting go.