At Long Last, She Blooms

More than twelve years ago Mrs. Nod and I visited the Vanderbilt estate, Biltmore, in Asheville, NC. While I was there, I fell in love with a tree form Wisteria vine that was overflowing with cascades of gorgeous purple flowers.

Sigh. Beauty is for the eyes to drink deeply.

So ten years ago I bought a purple Wisteria vine that had been trained up into a tree form for my own yard. I planted it, pruned it twice a year, gave it a trellis support and waited patiently. They said it may take up to three years before it started flowering, so I waited.

And waited.

This Spring I finally gave up and tore down the trellis which did no harm as it has been self-supporting for several years.  I had to prune the Wisteria back severely to extricate it. I had planned to dig it up with a shovel, but ran out of time on a Saturday.

A week went by and I went out back to see how to go about digging it up, when I noticed some pod looking clusters that I had never seen before.  I waited another few days and sure enough! those are flowers -- my flowers that I have waited 10 long years to see starting to peek out.

 I was a little aggressive when pruning and actually tore this branch a bit because I was going to chop it down. You can see the plastic zip ties around the branch in the lower left corner of the picture that I used to reinforce and hold it together. All of a sudden it is precious to me.

It reminds me of the parable of the fig tree that wouldn't produce fruit. The gardener begged for one more year of extra care before cutting it down. I don't know that I did anything differently, but God in his kindness has sent me a little beam of hope.  Perseverance has won the day!

At long last, she blooms.