With Age Comes Beauty

Gardening teaches us patience.  Sure you can buy trees and shrubs fully mature.  Perennials can be bought and planted in bloom.  But for me, half the fun is watching plants grow and mature. This maturation can be fast, but sometimes it can be very slow.  

I planted a pink dogwood (Cornus florida 'Rubra') many years ago.  I guess about 10 years ago. It was a very small sapling full of pink flowers at time of planting. (Nurseries always know how to make their young plants bloom perfectly as they wait for buyers.)

Its new home was near the main dining patio where it would receive dappled sunlight. Subsequent years, it leafed out well, but didn't bloom.  I thought it might need more light so I trimmed some nearby trees.  Still no blooms.  I thought it might need more nutrients so I added organic fertilizers.  Still nothing.  Two years ago, a large tree died in an adjacent bed.  After its removal, additional light flooded the whole dining patio garden, but this dogwood remained just a green-leafed tree.

Last year, I spotted a few blooms on the top of the tree.  You could only see them from higher ground.  It was better than nothing.  However, this year, I counted about 10 blossoms.  Some up top and some on lower branches.  I see this as progress and hope that next spring there will be even more pretty pink blooms to enjoy.  

I am a bit jealous.  As time passes, my plants get more beautiful and this gardener just gets older.