Not to worry

I shouldn't have fretted so much about the mussaenda.

I was devastated when January's cold snap denuded it, and worried when I hard-pruned it later to encourage new blooms, according to all the garden-guide instructions . . . and still nothing.

That sweet little acrylic, which showed it tall and bushy but still bloom-free, wasn't exactly a vote of confidence.

But holy cow!

As she walked by the house yesterday our neighbor Frankie called out, "I never saw that one before! Beautiful! Beautiful!"

And, just as I thought two years ago when I saw it first on a walk in Truman Annex, my whole heart said yes.

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As the light was fading today and the night jasmine were doing their overpowering thing, a guy walked in front of the house and stopped in his tracks. He reached into a backpack and pulled out a huge camera, with an even bigger lens, and then noticed me sitting on the porch, reading.

"Please?", he said, pointing to the flowers by the street.

It sounded like a German accent, so I told him in what Göthe-era German I have that he could do as he wished, and it was my pleasure.

"Very old-style, very nice," he said, and grinned, and started taking what must have been three dozen pictures of our dwarf plumeria.