For several years, I have been trying to grow feverfew from seeds in my garden. A Boston friend, Diane Miller, gave me my first feverfew plant for our home in Columbus, Ohio, more than a decade ago. I fell in love with its subtle citrus scent, its profusion of little flowers and its vigor for spreading each year.
Ever since we moved to Wisconsin almost six years ago, I have been trying to grow this plant from seed (as I haven't seen it at the nurseries I frequent).
The feverfew looks like a dainty miniature daisy to me, and as you know, I (heart) daisies. (Although, in fact, feverfew is a relative of the chrysanthemum).
This year, I thought my efforts were again for naught.
But in late August there were seedlings, long after I had given up hope. Then in late October, the plant bloomed. And for the past several weeks we have enjoyed several small bouquets of this sweet, happy flower.
Nature is such a great teacher for me on the value of patience and the right timing of everything.
Watching (sometimes obsessively) the camera feed of the Titan Arum at the Milwaukee Public Museum has been another lesson for me this week in the divine right timing and inner wisdom that is imprinted within each plant.
Here it is almost a week after the initial announcement that the plant would bloom any day and still no bloom. Yet. But this is a plant that has been building up to its bloom for more than six years. What's a few more days of waiting until the time is just right.
I trust that the Titan Arum, just like my feverfew plants, knows the right time to bloom. I also sense that if I can stand in such utter surrender and trust that I, too, will know that the bloom is coming. I will know the exact right time to blossom open fully.
Someone recently pointed out to me that the bloom often comes at the end of the flower's life cycle. There is so much growing and stretching that must happen first — going from seed to seedling to branching with buds. And the flower the culmination of its efforts.
Such a great reminder for me (who has in the past has been Little Miss Impatient) that the effort of growing is what makes the bloom possible.
Tell me, how do you know when it is time to bloom open into something new?
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Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they have to teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.