I love flowers. My middle name is Rose, for heaven’s sake. I’ve always had flowers around me. For years, I used to get a bouquet of flowers from the grocery store every week.

Then, I moved here to Seattle, and while I don’t have flowers growing outside year-round, for much of the year, I do. The flowers die back by October, but then I have amazing tree foliage to look at. Then, come February, the crocuses start to bloom. They’re followed quickly by the daffodils, tulips, irises, etc.

Out here on the property, we then get huge swaths of forget-me-nots, followed by dandelions and foxglove. The rhododendrons are pretty spectacular. Hopefully next year, the lilacs that we planted this year will bloom. Plus, there are the apples and pears, and my crabapple tree. And the roses!

Then come the daisies. For the last few years, we’ve been encouraging the daisies to grow everywhere. It’s been fun mowing paths around the flowers. In my front yard right now, I have flat, mowed yard, with two little islands of daisies in the middle.

Since my sweetie has started writing full-time, his allergies have been getting worse. I think, in part, it’s because he’s intensely exposed to a lot more things. Before, he’d only get exposed when he came home at night. Now, it’s 24-7.

This last week/weekend, his allergies got really bad. Now, I don’t generally bring flowers inside the house. But I had a bouquet of daisies sitting on the kitchen counter, right next to where he writes.

Finally occurred to us that he might be allergic to the daisies.

I got rid of the bouquet, and within two hours, all his allergies had disappeared.

You can see where this is going…

While I love flowers, I do love my husband more. It’s important that he keeps breathing, as well as keeps writing. (I tease him about how I can’t kill him off yet for the insurance money, as there’s this series he needs to finish off…)

So yesterday, I committed The Great Daisy Massacre of 2020. I didn’t mow all the patches of daisies. I just mowed down the ones that were close to the house. As well as the patch that was right next to the AC unit. You know, that thing that sucks air in from the outside, cools it, and brings it into the house?

There are still plenty of daisies in my yard. From where I’m sitting right now, I can still see a large sea of them.

Next year, I’ll keep them mowed back instead of encouraging them to grow so close to the house. And hopefully, my sweetie’s allergies will be a lot better!

FYI – he takes local honey in his coffee every day. That has already tremendously helped his allergies. As he says, instead of being allergic to the month of June, he’s generally only allergic to three days in June. The daisies were just too much.