Welcome to the final edition of the Five Minute Friday link-up for April!
Learn more about the link-up and how it works here, and join the email list here.
This week’s FMF writing prompt is: TIMING
Setting my timer for five minutes, and . . . GO.Â
You guys.Â
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen The Sad Story of the Premature Planting of the Hydrangea and the price I paid for my overeagerness.
On March 30th, I saw a beautiful, thriving hydrangea plant at my local Costco for only twenty dollars. I knew from last season that most blooming hydrangeas cost around forty dollars in my area, so to me, this was a steal. Since hydrangeas happen to be some of my favorite flowers, I couldn’t pass it up.
I put the plant in my Costco cart on a beautiful, unseasonably warm spring day in West Michigan, drove it home, and proceeded to plant it in the ground right next to an existing, mature hydrangea plant that was just starting to show signs of early buds.
I mean, look at this beauty:
Well. Let’s just say I was a little overeager. Okay, a lot overeager.
I should’ve known better.
I enjoyed these beautiful blooms through my slider door for six full days as I worked from home, and then . . .
Michigan spring happened.
The plant froze.
See Exhibit B and try not to shed a tear:
SO sad, right? All because my timing was off.
I should’ve waited.
As I type this story now, I’m sure someone could pull some kind of sermon illustration out of this devastating tale.
Perhaps it’s a lesson for all of us to keep waiting on the Lord until the right time to be planted.
STOP.Â
+++
Have you ordered your copy of Longing for Home yet?
Affiliate links used in this post
+++
Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite on the prompt, TIMING, below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:Â
Living in New Mexico,
to make your garden classic
you really would just have to go
back to the Jurassic
when swamps and forests did abound
without that dry-wind hex,
and the land rang to the sound
of Tyrannosaurus Rex,
and I wonder if that scaly guy
was a gardner, too,
and ventured to Costco to buy Hydrangeas of blue
only to find them a dead loss
when eaten by Triceratops.
Oh I feel this. I did almost the same thing. My plant blossomed nicely in the house for a couple weeks. Then I thought, I’ll plant it outside. It snowed a few days later.
Gah! I’m sorry, Tricia! It’s painful, isn’t it?!
Powerful reminder for us all in this visual lesson!
It is a very sad tale, and your beautiful hydrangea does look very dead, but are you positive there is no tiny sign of life that may surprise you when the weather turns hot?
For what it’s worth, I have never been able to bring myself to discard any of my dead-looking plants if there is even the tiniest hint of something green, hidden somewhere within it, and several times they have surprised me with new growth when I least expected it.
Oh, man! I feel your pain! I got two of those beautiful bushes for Mother’s Day one year and … ak … they didn’t even make it through the summer! I have no idea what I did wrong …. :o(
I hope you get it replaced!
hopefully it will come back. 🙂
The only plants that I can successfully grow are succulents.
Sorry about your hydrangea 😔
Oh I absolutely love this story, even though it had a sad ending. I can certainly relate to spring eagerness. Too soon is a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Your message about waiting until the right time, God’s time, to be planted is powerful!
Thank you, Diana! And thanks for being here!
I live in Wisconsin, which also experiences fickle springtime temps. I feel your pain and disappointment, as I have experienced similar frosty losses. Even though I’m an avid gardener, I still push the season too often; in fact, I have spent the past two evenings covering some similarly prematurely planted garden treasures. I have also learned that the plants typically found in supermarkets pre-Mother’s Day are bred more for their instant beauty than for outdoor hardiness. Perhaps your frostbit hydrangea will recover with a trimming back of the frozen bits, warmth, and a little TLC.