We have these incredible hydrangea bushes in front of our house, which are successful almost despite us. I think they’ve been here since the house was built and passersby often stop to admire them (or even cut a few flowers). Once in a great while, I go out with some anvil clippers and nip the browning flowers. It took me a few years of garden ownership to learn even this much…dead stuff siphons the life off the budding part of the plant. The other morning, I was finally getting around to my deadheading job and noticed something. Hydrangeas –even slightly brown ones– look really good in heaps. In fact, they looked so good that it seemed a shame to throw them in the trash. So, instead, I took them inside and filled the bathtub.

I have a relative who is an amazing artist and often does installation art with a feminist bent. Her daughter has confided that it was occasionally tough growing up with a mom who hung defaced wedding frocks from their front-yard trees. At times I wonder if my son will someday have a similar reaction to my writing. Or even if this day he’d have a similar reaction to the hydrangea-filled bathtub. An hour or so after I filled the tub, he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth when I heard, “Hey, it’s warm in here once you get used to it!” He’d gone into the tub with the flowers, just for fun. He was wondering about the science behind the whole thing…do clipped flowers conduct heat? Later, one of his friend’s came over, also saw the flower tub, and didn’t make a single comment. Of course, his mom is a Russian clothes designer and his dad is a French nail polish exec. I guess decorating the bathroom with a tubful of hydrangeas is just the most natural thing to these seven-year-olds, which is kind of cool. I hope.

My flower exhibit lasted a few days, and then I had to remove them so we could use the tub. Excellent decoration for a party, though. Sometimes I have a sneaking feeling Martha Stewart would be jealous of my brilliant home ideas.