When Things Grow

I think my wisteria is eating my deck,

The heat and the rain made it grow,

I didn't get out there to trim it quite yet,

But I just did it not too long ago!

This summer has been really great for growing plants!  Our flowers are beautiful, tomato plants producing tomatoes (they're still green, but should be ripening up in the next week or so), and on the down side there's a bumper crop of weeds where I don't want them.  I can't seem to keep up with the growth of things and most notably the Wisteria.  I planted this Wisteria the year after my mother passed away, as a reminder to me of all the flowers she planted around her yard and in flower beds.  On the side of the house between us and the next door neighbor she had Rose of Sharon, Peony, Forsythia, Mock Orange, and Wisteria. I spent many summer afternoons there laying on a beach towel listening to music and reading trashy novels and teen magazines.  It was a nice private spot with a  pleasant mixture of shade and sun. Her Wisteria had beautiful lavender colored flowers on it.  Mine has never flowered, but grows well and gives a little bit of shade to part of the back yard in the late afternoon when the sun is at its hottest in July and August. When it was first planted we had only the deck, the  paver patio and ramp to the back yard were added later when I needed a way to get Hillary down into the yard without the wheelchair wheels sinking into the soft ground in the spring.  As she grew and became heavier it has become more challenging for me to push her on soft surfaces, in fact now I can't push her across the grass by myself.  I need help getting her back up the  ramp from the yard, so I usually only take her on the patio or onto the deck.  But now, since we've had lots of heat and afternoon/evening thunderstorms with copious amounts of rain, the Wisteria has taken over and I need to trim it.  I don't think about it when I actually have time to do it, only when I'm on my way out or have just returned home and I see it when I'm in the van.  At least it's the back deck that's blocked and not the front.  However, there is the potential for a plant to take over the front deck. That would be the clematis which earlier in the summer was loaded with blooms, as the picture below shows. I had the joy of seeing that show of color every time I walked out my front door, but what you can't see in the picture is that it spilled over the top of the hand rail and sent out tendrils trying to attach to the other side.  I didn't have the heart to trim it so it's been a running thing to gently bend the feelers back over the deck rail to intertwine with the rest of the plant on the other side.  I think it will bloom again once the days are a little shorter .  Sometimes, if we have a mild Autumn, there will still be a flower or two near the bottom on Thanksgiving.  It always seems like such a treat when there is still a colorful blossom or two just when we're hearing about coming snow, it almost feels like a miracle.  It just goes to show that things that want to grow, will grow even when conditions don't favor them.  I think we are like that, we humans, if we want to grow we will.  We may be facing harsh conditions, or just things that don't favor growth but we can do it and we do, do it.  Sometimes we go into a bit of a dormancy period, but we are always looking for that chance to get better than we were yesterday, send out a new shoot, and maybe even put forth a blossom or two.