Azalea at Home

The azalea that lives on Rosemont Avenue, just past the college, was planted when the house Sped and Linda now own was built more than a hundred years ago.  

I had never considered azaleas as the independent denizens of their habitats they are until I was sitting on my friends' porch recently while the day lengthened into evening and the gusting wind that preceded heavy rain blew through the outer boughs of this beauty. In the inmost part of the azalea, a small bird sheltered undisturbed by the wind.

The house is protected from the street by the azalea, whom I suspect has a say in the comings and goings in this grand old house over the years.  Could the azalea have chosen inhabitants who would respect its dominion over the property?  Linda mentioned that she has trimmed it only few times, as when it began to take over the big porch a few years ago, where we sat now and talked, she with a bowl on her lap of blackberries and strawberries that she was trimming for supper. The little bird watched us on the porch, safe and sound.

Behind the house there is a garden that my friends have made with flowers and vegetables, and a thicket of brambles, and even a new compost bin.  The garden is abundant and verdant, possibly having been given the go-ahead from the azalea out front. When Linda tended her husband (who is healthy and well today) through a grave illness a few years ago, and never left his side for months at the hospital, the garden was untended by her, and left to its own notions.  When Sped returned home, one of the first sights he saw was the brick patio, and  growing over its surface between the bricks was a new garden of self-seeded petunias in full bloom, a pretty gift to him from the garden.  The petunias must have taken the hint to be confident in their own direction from the azalea.

Comments

[Moretta]

Glorious. I want this, but with no work.