I showed Bob a plant volunteer in our front yard, a stalk with coral blooms that suddenly popped up between the poppies, the jade plants and the tangle of ice plants that he planted several years ago. They've all gone pleasingly wild over the once rather barren slope in front of our house. Now it's a tangle of unruly plants hemming in the rose bushes that were originally here when we moved in eleven years ago. (It doesn't seem that long ago, but is.)
We bought the jade plants at a garage sale, tiny cuttings in cheap plastic pots. For years they sat on our front porch, neglected. One day we decided to plant them. For us, that was a radical notion. To our amazement they grew, imperceptibly it seemed, into the large sturdy bushes that we have today. The larger bush blooms every year. It's blooming now, covered with white flowers. The ice plants are in bloom as well, crowned with crinkly purple thistles.
How the ice plants came about was theft: every time we walked along Emery Bay, Bob filched a cutting or two from the vast expanse that grew along the waterfront. I was not supportive of this endeavor in any way. Embarrassed, I pretended I wasn't with him when he committed the theft and when he planted them, I was dubious that they would grow. But grow they did. Now they cover the entire slope.
He was a little grumpy when I pulled him out of the house into the cold air to look at our new flower, but just then a humming bird swept in, hovered over the rose bushes and winged away -- a small miracle that gave us joy.
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