Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.— Robin Wall Kimmerer
I have a bottlebrush buckeye in my (formerly shady) garden. I brought it home when it was tiny. . . a little plant I picked up at a lovely tree nursery about 7 years ago. The nursery owner warned me. His advice: plant that where it will have plenty of room – because it will stretch wider than tall . . . and it will get pretty tall! Now, it’s always hard to imagine how big a plant can get . . . when you’re looking at a little thing that’s living happily in an 8″ pot and isn’t even a foot tall. But I followed the nurseryman’s advice and made sure it had plenty of room. And, wow! Was he right! (It grew fast, too.)
It’s a beautiful understory shrub. It has interesting leaves and lovely blooms in July, when you really need some punch and color in the garden. Bees and butterflies love it. The leaves turn bright yellow in the fall, and it forms the coolest seedpods, too. (Oh – and I discovered last year that the deer leave it alone. So . . . bonus!)
It’s definitely a highlight in my garden.
Or . . . it was.
Remember that old mulberry tree? The one that sent a giant limb crashing down in my garden back in that May storm? Yeah . . . my bottlebrush buckeye was one of the “victims” of that incident. The limb took out half of my bottlebrush buckeye — and it damaged much of the remaining plant. I thought it was a goner. I pruned it up as best I could and gave it plenty of fertilizer . . . to give the remaining plant its best chance at survival.
In fact, that photo showing the blooms above? That was taken this past July . . . a couple of months after the storm . . . on the same day the tree guys came to remove the old mulberry.
So, yeah . . . it survived. My tired, damaged bottlebrush buckeye . . . half of what it used to be . . . bloomed anyway!
Yesterday . . . which turned out to be yet another day of terrible, heartbreaking news . . . I went out to my garden. To water my newest trees and to just spend time among plants. To clear my head and to spend some . . . quiet time in a peaceful place, my “happy place.”
And you know what I discovered?
Seed pods forming on my bottlebrush buckeye!
Despite the trauma of having half itself “amputated” by that crashing limb, my little shrub is determined to . . . go on anyway. To bloom. To form seed pods. To keep doing what it does . . . in nature, in my garden.
Like Robin Wall Kimmerer says . . . even a wounded world is feeding us; even a wounded world gives us moments of wonder and joy.
Onward, my friends.
Onward!
RWK is so right… it is impossible not to be joyful in nature. Plants, birds, animals… everything shows us how to keep going in the face of adversity in the most beautiful ways! I like this story of your little bottlebrush plant that could!
Thanks for this story of resilience and perseverance in nature. Some days it seems almost impossible to find something good or the bad is downright horrifying, but nature just keeps giving us joy.
Hooray for nature! I loved this story from your garden. I have always loved to be in nature because it nourishes me in so many ways. I have never seen a bottle brush buckeye. Gonna look that one up.
That’s a cool looking bush!! I had a couple of Bridalwreath Supirea — big, old, well-established — absolutely flattened by debris when we had the roofers from hell 30 years ago. I cried. I knew they were goners… dead. “HAHA!” said Mother Nature! “Watch me!” They bounced back the next year & have been going strong ever since.
The persistence of your bottlebrush buckeye is a wonderful allegory for the times we are in. Also, bottlebrush buckeye is fun to say!
Yesterday was a hard day, so I’m glad your garden gave you some good news. I know I’ve said this before, but those dark early days of the pandemic, when we didn’t know what we didn’t know, I found so much comfort from nature and seeing things come back to life in those early days of spring. Thank goodness for nature!