We all need roots

"In a garden, growth has its season...as long as the roots are not severed, all is well, and all will be well in the garden."

This quotation comes from one of my all-time favourite films, Being There, in which Peter Sellers plays a simple soul abruptly ejected from his closeted life as gardener for a reclusive multimillionaire. Suddenly homeless and clueless on the streets of Washington DC, he ends up, by a series of random chances, as a guest of the White House. The President, threatened with a complex economic crisis, takes the horticultural utterances of his mysterious guest to be enigmatic references to the monetary situation and acts accordingly, with complete success.

Here are three hyacinth bulbs whose roots extended into the water and filled the jars well before the shoots got going. The backdrop is an embroidered cushion cover I bought at a sidewalk sale in Philadelphia. I don't know its age or provenance.

Today's foul weather precludes outdoor photography but this is a reminder that the season of growth is on its way.