Crowning Glory

  There is something rather special about watching the sun rise up over the pines on the opposite side of the Bayou.  That big ball of red seems to cast a beautiful glow on everything it touches.  It makes the ordinary turn extraordinary and the mundane seem special.  I would rather roll out of bed before sunrise than to miss the experience. 

  This morning the sunrise did not fill the horizon with the fiery, streaked colors of days past.  The lack of cloud cover left the sky a solid glow of orange but the sun was amazingly clear.  I took a few photos, then promptly forgot the sun and concentrated on fishing.  After a bit, I headed back up the hillside to the Little Bayou House.  It was then that I spied the beauty of the morning.  The sun's beams peeked through the treetops and into the garden.  There, these rays hit the large angel-wing begonia setting it ablaze with color!  The plant never looked so pretty!  

  When coming across something as simple as a sun-dappled plant can make the day seem perfect, you know that you are viewing life in the right way.  Folks, find peace in yourself and all the other stuff will fall into place nicely.

The Little Begonia With a Huge Job

  Occasionally, something happens that just brightens the day without even trying.  Since the redoing of Little Bayou House has taken up most of my time as of late, the gardens are in a disarray...big time.  In fact, there is a great lack in gardens for the first time in many, many years.  Things have been left to their own accord which usually means weeds overtaking the preferred plants.  While this is true in about half of the garden and even the potted plants, this morning, I found one plant that was doing perfectly fine by itself.  

  Several years ago, my oldest brother brought down a huge angel-wing begonia.  "Here, this was Mom's.  You take it."  So, I did!  Excitedly!  The thing had a rough go here as the raccoons decided to repot the begonia without the aid of a new pot.  It was pulled up by the roots and tossed the wayside.  Yes, I replanted.  Yes, the coons "unplanted".  Several times over again.  After the third time and since the plant was now pretty well mangled, I tried one last time and stuck the thing in the greenhouse.  There, it flourished!  Earlier this spring, every plant was hauled outside and forgotten until today.

  While out washing the old dog, I spied the begonia and found it was doing perfectly wonderful!  Although a lot smaller than when my brother brought it to me, it was full of blooms!  Mom would be so happy!  She loved this begonia.  As I looked at it, the plant brought back a flood of memories of Mom and Pop.  Although this was Mom's plant, Pop would secretly take care of it, as he did with all of her potted plants.  He would sneak fertilizer to them, prune them and water them....all on the sly so Mom did not know.  (Or perhaps she did and just never said anything to spoil his secret.)  

  Things like that have a way of bringing fond memories and lots of smiles of long gone days.  Sometimes, that is just what is needed to help us trudge through when we get bogged down in our daily chores.  With renewed energy, I vowed to beat the heat and find a little time each day to get the gardens back to their former beauty.  The begonia deserves a place to be in its full glory...as do the other plants that I, more or less, have neglected for the past few months.   I just need to find the time and energy.  If that little begonia can overcome all of its tribulations to bring me a bit of happiness, I surely can return the favor.

Angel Wings and Halos!

Sometimes things just have a way of finding their way back home.  I am now in possession of a plant that came from the old farm place.  Mom had very few potted houseplants because she always said that she did not have a "green thumb".  The few she kept on the screened porch did remarkably well in spite of this claim.  Granted a good bit of their care fell to Pop, the farmer.  He would repot the plants each spring and fertilize them throughout the growing season.  The "care" that Mom showed was careful watch on the soil.  If it became dry, she watered.  Like I said, the plants flourished under this dual-care system and grew to great sizes.  They always bloomed profusely which was much to Mom's delight.  Probably her favorite of all houseplants was the Angel Wing Begonia.  I can fully understand her admiration of this plant.  It is quite beautiful!

A couple of weeks ago, my brother toted a huge potted plant down to the Little Bayou House.  "Here." he said...that was it.   "Here."  This brother is one of those folks that can say a lot in just a few words.  He could have said some "flowery" little speech about how he wanted to give me this gorgeous plant that he had babied all of these years.  He could have pointed out that albeit cracked, it was planted in one of Mom's large terra cotta pots.  He could have told me that he did this because he loved me and I was his favorite sister!  Ok, so that last one was stretching it a bit but, hey, a girl can dream!  Anyway, he just said "Here."  I had to drag out the part about this being Mom's plant and her flower pot.  He did profess that he was giving the plant to me because he did not want to drag it inside with every threat of a freeze.  Ha!  See, I know better than that!  He secretly does think I am his favorite sister!!  Now the plant sits in my entryway so it can be seen by everyone that enters!  This evening, I went to lock the door and was astounded by the plant.  Earlier I had turned on a heat lamp to protect the tender foliage.  The way the light was illuminating the plant was most fitting!  The plant had a lovely glow about it.  My Angel Wing Begonia had a halo!

The Angel Wing Begonia is actually a hybrid begonia.  It is a cross between a begonia aconitifolia and a begonia coccinea.  A lady named Eva Kenworthy Gray crossed the two in 1926 and came up with the lovely Angel Wing.  She named it thus because of the shape of the individual leaves.  These leaves have a wonderful speckled appearance but they are not the plant's only claim to fame.  The plant has great clusters of reddish pink blooms almost endlessly during the warmer months.

Now that the Angel Wing has come to be part of the Little Bayou House, I sure hope that I can care for it just as Mom and Pop did and with the continued loving care that my brother gave it.  I would love to have a long screened porch with rocking chairs and Angel Wing Begonias.....just like at the old farm.  (Oh, and just to be honest, my brother, Tommy,  has one of these for our sister, Susan, as well.  I guess he loves her, too.  But I am his favorite!  Just saying!.....Maybe?)