The rest of Ophelia's garland

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;

Pray, love, remember:

and there is pansies, that's for thoughts.

—Ophelia, William Shakespeare's Hamlet

And here's a bushel of chives, that's for shame.

—Jay

When we first started a vegetable garden six years ago or so, my neighbor asked if I would like some chives. Of course, that sounded delightful, and she gave me a couple clumps.

I plopped them in the ground along the sidewalk where I had planted a few other herbs for easy access to the backdoor. I had no idea at the time that chives are the horticultural equivalent of rabbits: they multiply like crazy and are more than happy to consume a garden.

The growth of the chives patch — it's a patch now — was a little alarming at first, and I felt a bit ashamed for how little I was using this bountiful crop. I would sprinkle a few chives on top of a frittata or in a potato dish. But I have enough chives to open a dumpling stand at the Taste of Chicago.

A few summers ago, I noticed a large swath of chives in the landscaping around the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. They were quite lovely in bloom. I'm not sure why I needed someone else's garden to validate my own, but it was a comfort. I now embrace the chives, with no shame, as simply another flowering perennial — and occasional herb.

I now plant the other herbs in raised beds. I've allowed the chives to fill in most of the space beneath our crabapple tree and to blend in with a few Johnson blue geraniums in the same space. They seem happy enough together. Chives that show up where I don't want them are easy enough to pull up.

While thumbing through a magazine at the doctor's office the other day, I came across tips for the herb garden. The writer suggested deadheading chives vigorously to keep them under control. It's a shame there was no mention of not deadheading them to create a lovely, carefree flower garden.

And chive flowers are edible, you know, like pansies.

Peonies, or ignoring unsolicited advice

"In the eyes of the editor of Cottage Gardening, it was the very absence of a 'pretentious plan' that lent the charm to the cottage garden, leaving the 'flowers to tell their own tale.'"

From The Cottage Garden, by Twigs Way

I can claim little to no responsibility for the lovely peonies in our back garden. They were planted along the north side of the garden by a previous owner, whose father grew them commercially.

I water them, throw a bit of compost around them every spring, mulch heavily, and use grow-through cages to hold them up. I have also ignored unsolicited peony advice:

·      Do not move them

·      Cut off the smaller buds to make the larger buds get even bigger

·      Do not use them as cut flowers in the house because of the ants

Well, I couldn't leave them along the fence. I'm not fond of lining up plants (except the vegetables). Once we decided to rip out the entire back lawn, I felt at liberty to move things about with reckless abandon. And the peonies survived.

This is my evolving "unpretentious plan" — with the peonies in bloom.

I toyed with the idea of cutting off the smaller buds, but after the first year of picking up soggy blooms following a heavy rain, it seemed silly to make them bigger and heavier. And I rather like the little blossoms and even the buds that never open. They're the charming introverts in the Paeoniaceae family of divas (or tenors).

Now about the ants. I think a vase full of peonies is one of the best reasons to have a garden. My ant-reduction strategy is to cut the flowers in the late afternoon or early evening when the garden is in the shade. Or I cut them, put them in a vase, and set them in a cool shady place outside for a while. (This was solicited advice, but I can't remember who told me this.) I still get a few ants, but not enough to worry me.

Clark wanted to help me with a vase of peonies on Sunday. He cut the flowers, and I trimmed them for the vase. I explained my peony-arranging philosophy: put as many flowers in the vase as possible and then add a couple more. I hope these are the kind of things he remembers.