Every spring, my neighbor's dogwood and my azaleas combine for a dazzling show. This is only a portion of the azaleas. The are almost a solid wall across the upper yard.
I am fond of my azaleas because they are all white except for the strip of pink there in the middle.
Facts:
There was a couple that owned the house for 40 or 50 years - he worked at Lockheed (poster of planes made into his work bench in the basement), she was blind (audio record for the blind in the trash at the back of the yard) and had a german shepherd seeing eye dog (my neighbor Patti).
Fancy:
The gentleman planted the azaleas in the back yard and described them to his wife each year when they bloomed. And he told her about the rogue pink in the middle of all that white, his error, and they laughed together about it each year.
I am doing some work in my lower back yard, and that means these azaleas will have to be cut back significantly. But Tim the gardener says I will be surprised in how they come back. I've made him swear, promise and declare they will come back, because I've grown very fond of them both because of how they look each year when they explode and because of the couple I imagine enjoying them all those years ago.
My writing group ladies could take that story and run with it. All I can do is weep at the beauty of your flowers, facts and fiction. Well, maybe the facts aren't so worthy of a big fat boohoo, but I'm rarely discriminating these days!
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing that there you are one day, sneezing and coughing and complaining about allergies and the next day you open your itchy eyes and everything is abloom with azaleas. I didn't see one bud, but there were the pink and white bushes everywhere. Many of the older ones at my Dad's house (when will I quit calling it that and just refer to it as home?) have been trimmed back and never bushed back out. I think it was age or weather. Not to mention the cutter backer probably didn't know what he (okay, she) was doing.