• In the Garden

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The Girl from Ipomoea

posted by Terry OShaughnessy at 20h14

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Three true-blue morning glories. (Photo by Terry O'Shaughnessy)

Morning glories have been a dream of mine for a long time. I keep trying to grow a luxurious vine of flowers as blue as any sea-swept shade of the Cote d’Azur, or the aqua topazes in any Maharani’s jewel box, or the colour of my sister’s eyes. But something always happens.

  It begins in spring when, ever hopeful, I plant a large pot of ipomoea grandiflora at the base of the arch way in front of my house, and wait patiently for August when its true-blue flowers will bloom.

The first year I planted morning glories, nothing appeared. The second summer, I had lots of foliage, but just a few flowers that bloomed only days, or was it hours, before the first frost. Last year, I had a bumper crop on its way when my water main broke and a digger had to come to my house and wreck the front lawn, the flagstone walkway, and my arch with its still-unfurled morning glory buds. This year, as Hudson copes with the construction of a whole new water system, my street is next on the list--so there goes yet another year of lost (morning) glory.

  But I’m pretty happy nevertheless. I’ve had almost two weeks of flowers already, and though I can certainly hear the tractors advancing, no digging has actually begun yet. So every morning, I count my “gloire du matin” blossoms, and today reached a grand total of 47 as of 8:23 AM (Eastern Standard Time). Sure the flowers are all crumpled, faded and quite finished by afternoon, but their ephemeral presence is a living example of how we can’t hold on to anything anyway, right? So bring on the diggers.