Hi All Friends -
:)
Last month, I planted Sweet Peas from seeds - unusual seeds that looked like so many small tan seed pearls. The green rectangular planter and the large round urn in my balcony garden are now overrun with plucky Sweet Pea sproutlings, some six to eight inches tall already.
The garden usually needs to be watered only every couple of days this time of year. Lately, we�ve had rain showers almost every day, so I�ve missed a couple of days tending to the plants and flowers and vegetables.
A lot can happen in a garden over the course of a few days of inattention. Mystery flowers are blooming with tiny white fragrant blossoms and now have green disc-like seed pods developing. Green clover has taken a stand in the pot with the geraniums. The lilies look the same as they have every June - each year there is the worry that they will falter, and each year they prove me wrong. The maple tree that sprouted from the whirly bird is very small and vulnerable-looking; hard to imagine that a tree that grows so large can start so precariously.
And the Sweet Peas? Some looked windblown from our torrential storm last week, leaning in odd directions, and as I set about straightening them up, I noticed small tendrils that weren�t there last week. Tiny, curling, delicate tendrils, nearly as wispy as the filaments of a spider�s web, reached out towards anything nearby. In some cases, what they reached for and found was another Sweet Pea plant. Some were intertwined by their tendrils; wrapped around each other in a Sweet Pea embrace, they held onto each other for support. They were adorable.
I gently unwrapped the conjoined plants, tenderly unfurling the green threadlike tendrils. Then I set up a lattice work of strings for the plants to climb. I placed the first Sweet Pea plant into position and pushed the tendril next to the string; the tendril was long and very straight and so wispy - about one quarter the width of a toothpick. I worked my way down the row of Sweet Peas in the green planter - nine of them in all - positioning each plant as best I could next to a string.
When I had finished with the last plant, I stood up and stretched and shook out my knees in relief, then gathered up the spool of string and scissors. Before going back indoors, I took one last look at the first plant positioned next to it�s string to make sure things were still lined up.
Remember that tendril that was long and very straight and so wispy? It was still long and wispy, but no longer very straight, not at all. It was curled around the string, not with one loop but two. In less than fifteen minutes, the smart Sweet Pea had grasped onto the string and sinuously curled a tendril around it, instinctively finding the support it needed to climb towards the sun and bloom.
Seeing that Sweet Pea grab onto the string reinforced for me something I realized one winter day a couple of years ago, as I watched white Narcissus flowers follow the sun�s rays across a window. Back then, the Narcissus blossoms physically moved more than 18 inches over the course of the day, a silent and fragrant metronome swaying to the beat of the sun. Today, the Sweet Pea sought out the string and grabbed on for survival.
To those who deny that plants can be sentient, I would say this: don�t take my word for it. Next winter, plant some Narcissus bulbs indoors and watch them sway to the sun. Next spring, plant some Sweet Peas or Moonflowers or anything with tendrils that reach and embrace. There is nothing to lose and so many beautiful blossoms to gain.
love and peace,
joyce
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