I Felt The Need....

Begonia (Macro) (Click picture for larger view)

"When at last I took the time to look into the heart of a flower, it opened up a whole new world; a world where every country walk would be an adventure, where every garden would become an enchanted one." ~ Princess Grace of Monaco

I felt the need for color. I felt the need for flowers. It's a shame I don't feel the need to dig in dirt. I can find beautiful flowers, but I don't grow them.

In Mississippi I had flower beds with lovely azaleas that bloomed each year without me having to lift a little finger and hosta that seemed to die each fall and yet came back with a vengeance each summer. But I didn't have flowers, except for those hyacinth bulbs I threw in the ground one winter. They came up each spring but on their own, no help from me. Oh, yes I forgot the honeysuckle that grew wild over the fence around the dog enclosure.

One year I decided to have flowers. I bought flats of Impatiens; pink and white; lots of them. Then I started planting. I dug and planted, dug and planted; on hands and knees and scooting around the yard on my generous behind. I planted for three days straight and when finally finished, I stood and looked at the 375 little pink and white flowers and it was good.

But then I realized that watering would be required and in the 100 degree summer heat, a lot of watering. So I watered and watered and watered. They grow best in the shadier areas. No problem with the tall pine trees in Sherwood Forest. That year they did grow. At least in the front flower beds and in the shade. My front bed was square, right beyond the porch and had three established boxwoods about two feet tall. The Impatiens began to grow and grow and grow, and fill in until that square bed was a sea of pink and white blooms. Towards the front of the planting the flowers were about six inches tall because of their exposure to brighter sun for longer periods of time during the day. Toward the shade of the house they grew to a height of almost three feet and this gave a graduated slanting look to the flower bed. The boxwood? Completely encompassed by the flowers and couldn't be seen from the street or the porch.

That year my flower beds were beautiful. It was the only year they were beautiful. You see, I forgot that these were annuals and at the end of the season they shriveled up and died; then they didn't come back. You mean I would have to scoot around on hands, knees and behind each year to plant these again? I just about died the first time, couldn't stand up straight for a week and it took days to get the pebble imprints out of my knees which weren't anything to look at in the first place, so I passed. What followed were years of mediocre flower beds until one landscaper left me a surprise.... daylilies. Not everywhere, just a small patch of bright color; but the orange delights came up on their own every year and a few more each time. I didn't have to do anything.

So what does this story have to do with begonias? Absolutely nothing. I just felt the overwhelming need for color.

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