Pursuit of the Passion Flower

If you're not a gardener quit reading now because this will be BORING.
But if there's any botanical fervor in your heart, you'll get it.

Last year I spotted an exotic flower along the fence line of my neighbor's tobacco field. Not where you'd expect to find anything lovely. Later I saw one trained over an arbor in a garden shop and my friend identified it as a passion flower.

I vowed to have one in my yard. I snagged one of the pods from the wild plant to see if I could dry it. Unfortunately the pod rotted. I learned they supposedly don't have time to produce seeds in our climate.

I watched for it to sprout again this year. How horrible to see my farmer-neighbor uproot everything with a bulldozer! I held onto hope and kept watching just in case some little root survived. Actually, several plants have developed where there was just one. So much for the seeds-don't-work theory.

Not going to lose my chance again, I vowed to dig up the treasure as soon as it rained.

But I didn't have to, because in the ditch in front of the house, there are two, TWO! blooming there.