I always take a picture of our very old and very prolific clematis when it blooms every year, but can’t this year because it was almost destroyed last week. A friend who does some gardening for us came over to work on the tree box out on the sidewalk, which was jam packed with dayliles that never bloom and some compacted irises. She brought an “assistant,” who for some unknown reason proceeded to rip all the many clematis vines, complete with flowers, off our front fence. My friend says she screamed and asked what he was doing, but by then the damage had been done. I was unaware of all this, although when I first went outside he apologized to me for pulling some “weeds,” or something like that, which I didn’t understand at the time, until I saw my friend through the window with huge bundles of clematis vines in her arms. She apologized profusely and didn’t charge me anything for the enormous job of clearing out the tree box, and said at least the base of the clematis was intact and would hopefully grow vines again.

‘The New Drink,’ posted earlier: