This winter season, and particularly the past few months have been cold, damp, sloppy, and mostly miserable. Last year, at this most similar time, an adventure was engaged to obtain and relocate a tree that I’ve wanted for years, a Japanese magnolia (aka a saucer magnolia or tulip tree). Gorgeous cup-shaped pink to deep purple blooms burst forth usually at spring, appropriately the size of saucers, producing a perfect fragrance. However, due to the trauma ensued from the uprooting, transporting, and replanting our poor Japanese magnolia, I sadly had prepared myself for no blooms this year and highly anticipated the coming years when it would match surrounding trees bursting with too many to count. (Insert squeal of excitement!!!) I WAS WRONG!! It might not be too many to count, as a matter of fact there are six blooms, but there they are and I could not be more thrilled. I have to admit, those purple petals brought a smile to my face nearly every trip I took past the little survivor tree in the front yard.
“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.” -Luther Burbank
