Final Flowers

Flowers on my newly bought Abelia x grandflora a week after the Garden Fest.

You see a neat plant at the store or in a catalogue that you've never seen before. It may not be anything spectacular but your inner plant maniac tells that that plant MUST be yours. It looks great, bursting with blooms or lush with foliage, and you think this could be the best investment that you will be making this year.

Just at this moment, Sanity rears its ugly head and starts to fill you with doubt. You quickly begin to justify your could-be purchase. You worry about space constraints but decide that you can always make room for one more plant! You glance at the price tag and decide money is not an issue. You're even willing to ignore that one strangely crinkled leaf that looks suspiciously mite-infected; you'll snip it off when you get the plant home.

At about this point, Sanity decides you are beyond redemption and hits you with the Ultimate Question. The Question that will, more often than not, see that you put down your new found love with forlorn eyes and thereby part until the next nursery visit. For months after, you will remain devastated and you will continue to dream that one day you will be able to buy a house in the States or at least the highlands of Thailand where you may live with your lost love for good.

But maybe that's just me. My Ultimate (party-pooper) Question is: 'Will it grow HERE?!'

And by 'HERE?!' I mean in the humid, uniformly hot, lowland tropics of Singapore. Plants are climate sensitive. That being said, not all temperate plants die in the tropics and some are tolerant of some heat and humidity. Which is why I would like to ask my Abelia that has recently shed its spent blooms, "Was that first time the only time that I will be enjoying your flowers?"

I sure hope not :(