Last year I purchased plants from my unit at the South Texas Unit Herb Fair. In 2012 in particular, we offered exceptional plants to our faithful customers. For my own garden, I bought lamb’s ears, nasturtium and passionflower.
Many of my friends grow passionflower in their Houston gardens, but I had never tried one. Passiflora is such a beautiful, useful plant and I wanted to supply larval food to the Gulf fritillary butterfly.
All the plants I purchased did extremely well in my garden. The nasturtiums sprawled across an area like an orange carpet. Stunning! The lamb’s ears did equally well. I love their texture and the silvery-white glow they provide in the evening garden.
The passionflower grew very fast, as I had been told. My friends warned me that it has a mind of its own and I would be pulling up volunteers all through the yard. Yes, that happened too. I would run out and pull them out before my husband discovered them taking over.
I had found a perfect place on the west side of our house to allow the passionflower to grow up some ironwork. I carefully staked it as it grew. Mr. Lain, being the tidy clipper that he is, kept its tendrils cut back so it did not attack unsuspecting guests walking up the sidewalk.
In the meantime, life goes on. I am busy traveling back and forth between Houston and Fort Worth. Then we decide it is time to sell our Houston house and make the permanent move to the Fort Worth area.
Moves are momentous distractions from gardening! I had cared for the Houston garden for 25 years; it was going to be hard to say goodbye to our plants.
The move is now accomplished. On my computer, I signed the necessary closing documents from my location in Fort Worth. Billy, on the other hand, was to be present in Houston at the closing on the 29th of August. The day before closing he returned to the house for the final time. Can you guess what he saw? Yup, the passionflower was in bloom! He was amazed and told me that the flowers were as beautiful as I said they would be.
Like the closing documents I signed, I only got to see the passionflower bloom electronically. Oh well, it bloomed in its own time, not mine.
South Texas Unit, South Central District
