To Thrive, You Must First Survive
Unexpected beauty
Wonderful things can come from the most unpromising beginnings and beauty from the plain and unattractive. Sometimes they just need a little hope and nurture.
About 20 years ago I bought a house. It wasn’t my first attempt at home ownership and wouldn’t be my last. As is the way with such things, the deposit had been more than I planned, leaving me temporarily broke.
Since I now had a garden, I went along to a local nursery. It was one of those grandiose affairs boasting such gardening essentials as a bridge to let you walk across your ornamental pond.
Happily, lacking a pond I had no need of a bridge. I wandered off in search of something I could afford and discovered the delightfully named ‘Throwaway Table’ with the magic sign, ‘Everything $1’.
Here I found a sad assortment of plants not expected to sell, or even to survive. There was a collection of prickly cacti, a few unidentifiable leafy succulents and some spindly seedlings. This was my kind of garden display.
I noticed one wilting seedling in a tiny tube, a single skinny stem sprouting a couple of pale green leaves, it looked about to expire from lack of sunlight. I felt kind of sorry for it, waiting there on the throwaway table, struggling just to survive while surrounded by acres of robust exotics, orchids and roses.
The label on the seedling tube proclaimed it to be a perennial verbena. I’d always thought verbena was an annual, but never mind. It was unlikely the to survive the week, let alone one whole year.
I paid my dollar, took that skinny little seedling home and planted it in a larger pot with little hope of its survival.
Over the following weeks and years, it grew and spread into a vivid green and pink carpet. Visitors admired and asked for some, so it was divided and given away to thrive in other gardens.
Now, 20 years later, from the porch of another house, in another state, I look out at a profusion of pink flowers. They are not subtle those flowers. They are a bright, unabashed sort of pink, cheerfully covering an expanse of ugly yellow gravel where nothing else will grow.
Best dollar I ever spent.
Some people are a bit like that verbena plant. Tough, persistent, a bit brash, they hang in there when times are tough and the going gets hard. They see what needs to be done and do it. They may not be polished and polite, but they are hard-working and utterly reliable.
Like the verbena, such people are to be cared for and treasured.
