Gaura Re-blooms

In June, i bought a gaura, also known as beeblossom. I love the gaura's little flowers on 2-foot tall stalks, which look like the flowers are dancing in mid-air.

This was the fourth or fifth gaura i had bought over the years. If i planted it directly into a flowerbed, i could already predict that that would be the last time i would see it.

So i put it in a "nursery" bed, near the back door, so i could keep an eye on it. To my surprise, it is now re-blooming. I like plants that bloom twice in one year!

When we are learning meditation, we may try it again and again, but it doesn't "take." But when we carefully attend to our meditation by taking a class, for instance, or by sitting regularly with other meditators, then our practice blooms. Or re-blooms.

Last Call for Transplanting

Today is the day to transplant all of those plants malingering near your front door. The hottest 90 days of the year begin today, and the temperature is headed for the 90s soon. But first, a thunderstorm to do all your watering for you.

Those plants or seedlings that you don't know what to do with, don't know where to put them? Put them somewhere right now.

Doubt is a hindrance on our spiritual path--this? or that? But the middle ground of not choosing isn't really middle ground; it's middle spaciness. Doubt is also an obstacle in our gardening. Here? Or there? It doesn't matter. Just put those plants into the soil.

I have a couple of nursery beds, and if i really can't make up my mind, i plop them in there. Ahhh. Everything planted.

Grateful Generosity

Several years ago, i bought a variegated forsythia. I didn't have a place to plant it, so i stashed it in my nursery bed. And there it stayed. One little shrub-let became 4 good-sized bushes. You know how forsythia multiply: a long branch touches the ground and roots. Pretty soon you have a forest of forsythia.

I transplanted two of them. Then i put the word out to sister gardeners: Come and get them.

Today, the last one departs for another home and garden.

Giving away forsythia may sound like generosity-in-action. But i feel the recipients are doing me as big a favor as i am doing them. They're cleaning out a corner of my nursery bed, and for that i am very grateful.