'Buried' kousa
About eight years ago, I planted a four-foot tall kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa) in the rear of the center garden at the rear of the property at Ciel sur terre. Then life happened! First, I got busy with foster parent training, then with fostering three beautiful young children. If, that wasn’t enough distractions to cause me to neglect all gardening tasks, I underwent a quad-bypass heart surgery in the spring of 2015! The weeds were relentless and soon all evidence of the small ornamental tree had succumbed to the more hardy English ivy and wild blackberries. I had accepted the notion that many gardeners realize many times in their artistic experience—some things you plant will not survive, no matter how resilient they are—face it!
As with most gardeners facing the death of a favorite plant, I mourned briefly and swore off planting another one of these lovely gems. But to my surprise, last week I glanced out of the dining room window, west through the thicket, now depressingly out of control with undesired overgrowth of everything gardeners detest as undesirable and there was the most beautiful patch of snow-white bracts of my precious kousa dogwood!
The moral of this story, is that from time-to-time the Lazarus Effect of sorts do occur in the plant kingdom—enjoy the journey of gardening!
As with most gardeners facing the death of a favorite plant, I mourned briefly and swore off planting another one of these lovely gems. But to my surprise, last week I glanced out of the dining room window, west through the thicket, now depressingly out of control with undesired overgrowth of everything gardeners detest as undesirable and there was the most beautiful patch of snow-white bracts of my precious kousa dogwood!
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