Patience is Your Best Tool

Over the last couple of years the best thing I've learned about gardening is patience.

Once upon a time...

There was a girl who purchased an Azalea tree. She knew that it was an evergreen, but as fall approached the leaves started to turn brown. Soon, all the leaves fell off and the once beautiful tree looked dead.

In the next growing season, her love for flowers over powered her fear of killing another tree and she purchased a white and a pink Azalea tree. During the season the pink tree thrived and kept it's leaves all through winter. The white tree exhibited similar symptoms as her past Azalea tree. However, she was so busy with her vegetable garden that year, she forgot to clean out the dead plants on her balcony at the end of the season.

Winter came and went. The girl went into her balcony at the beginning of the next spring and was pleasantly surprised. The white tree was starting to grow leaves again. Flowers did not grow during this season, but as the years pass more and more leaves grew and eventually flowers bloomed once again.

Patience, my friends, is your best tool. Sometimes what seems like death is actually natures test to show you her resilience.

P.S. As vines age they look like they're dead, but it's just their secret trick :)

 first year Azalea trees

Azalea trees year three (if you look super close you can see tiny buds)

the one in the foreground is the pink healthy one, the one in the back is the one that looked dead :)