Step Up and Grow...

I’m learning to prune like the rain is coming, even on the sunny days.

When we moved to Atlanta in September of 2019, a lot of the summer blooming was done. Although we experienced a very hot fall that year, things were also starting to rest and you could feel the pull towards fall in the air. I’d never experienced the dense vegetation of the humid South, so I didn’t know much of what was in my own backyard, but I knew this girl the minute I saw her. A knockout floribunda. She continues to be my favorite. 

As I studied this plant and learned more about her in an effort to try to help her be the best she could be, I realized that a lot of caring for a floribunda was going to be falling to climb. To help her thrive, I had to cut away far more than I wanted to so she could come back healthy and strong the next bloom. She and I had a bit of trial and error and I was too easy on her at first. And then rain came and it was as if mother nature laughed at me when I stepped outside the next morning and the precious limbs I couldn’t bear to prune the day before were waterlogged, bent, and broken. I thought I’d lost her and I was devastated. So I dropped back and cut deeper. And I looked at her with more judicious eyes in an effort to help her be her best. It was hard and there were days she looked naked and exposed and looking back, it turns out I felt the exact same way. 

My floribunda has taught me that I can grow in any condition. Through depression. Loneliness. Through isolation, betrayal, and hurt. And she’s also shown me that those things don’t help me thrive. Thriving takes different conditions all together. Thriving takes a hard look at the situation. Careful, prayerful, thoughtful studying. And thriving takes action. And sometimes thriving takes a bravery we don’t know we possess until it’s time to step up and grow.