Last week I told my husband, “We may need to make a bit of a budget in springtime. For your wife’s happiness, in the form of plants.”

I started a few seeds, truth be told, in January. And then there was the twenty-cent seed rack: Canterbury Bells. Snapdragons. Moss roses. Sugar-snap peas. Petunias. Jalapenos. Basil. Coleus. Zinnias in these explosive colors. (I am an equal-opportunity planter.)

That was next to the display of blueberry plants (perfect for pollinating the one I got last year at the end of the season!), and one of my favorites: pink, globe-shaped peonies. Two of those, please. (I took them out of the package and actually heard myself saying to these stumpy, brown roots, “Come here, you beautiful little things.”)