It was yesterday’s pot, last year’s soil, unplanted, and left to thought.
I forgot the flower pot this spring and there it stood – waiting. Occasionally I thought about what might flourish in that soil filled container in the hot, desert-like conditions of a windy deck. But quite simply I never got around to doing anything and planned to empty the pot and store it in the garage.
Awaiting some action, the pot of old soil just stood there looking empty and forlorn.
Spring was glorious but suddenly it was summer when I noticed a little green sprout – a so-called volunteer.
“Maybe it will be a magnificent flower,” I thought.
It turned out the baby green thing is a Tulip Poplar, a tree that grows to 80 to 100 feet tall with show-off blooms of tulip shaped flowers. There is a stand of
Tulip Poplar Leaves and Flower
these trees at the edge of the property, no doubt watching over little “Toolip”. Her leaves are precisely the same and that’s how I recognized the sprout.
I have no heart to kill such a brave and hearty volunteer so Toolip is still growing in her pot.
She requires almost no attention but I tend to “mother” her anyway.
She is healthy and green.
I talk to her and she seems to understand (hopefully no one else is listening).
She is there – always there, and somehow makes me smile.
Perhaps when she is a plantable sapling size or looking ready for more soil, I will find a more permanent place.
But for now I am Toolip’s volunteer Mother and she is temporarily mine.
Virginia Views 