Recently, while surveying our flower beds, I came across a most unusual plant. It was tucked in the corner where last year, in late autumn, delicate lavender-pink, fall-blooming crocuses bloomed. I couldn’t quite imagine what had been deposited there that would produce such a top-heavy, ungainly plant.
So, I did what I often do when confronted with a mystery that has anything to do with flowers or growing things. I texted a picture of the plant to my younger sister. She asked if this green thing had grown up near where the crocuses she had given me had appeared — and it had. In giving me the crocus bulbs, she had neglected to tell me that in the spring this plant would appear, and then die off when summer came. Then, in the fall, in its place, the crocuses, devoid of anything green, would appear.
It seems that those delicate flowers need all that robust vegetation to provide nourishment over the summer for the bulbs to bloom. If I had cut off the plant, there would not be that touch of color in the late fall. It was a very graphic reminder, first, that I can’t always judge something (someone) by how they first present themselves, and second, that patience often is its own reward.
– Blog entry and photo by Sister Joyce Lehman