This Butterfly Bush Shows How Nature Adapts

Many years ago I planted this butterfly bush from a four-inch pot. It grew to be taller than I am. Then last year the wind blew it down. At the time I was recovering from surgery and I could not do anything about it. It was still alive, but part of the plant's roots were exposed on the ground's surface. About all I could do was try to keep the exposed roots watered for a while. But the plant remained on its side.

Butterfly Bush on its Side

Now, this year, those formerly exposed roots have dug deeply into the soil and you can see that new branches (from center to right) are growing upright again. If you look closely toward the right side, you can still see the part of the plant that fell growing sideways. During the dormant season  I will probably trim the fallen part away and have an interesting upright plant again. Nature knows how to fix plants that have problems.

Exposed Roots and Some New Growth

For comparison, this photo shows how the plant looked in January, shortly after it blew to the ground. You can see its exposed roots on the right. This is the same view of the plant as the one above, except for the seasonal flower and leaves. The bare branches on the ground in the middle are what you see the blooming branches growing upright from above.

See more of this story at The Fall and Recovery of a Butterfly Bush.

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Garfield Relaxing in Herb Garden

About this time last year, we still had neighbor cats visiting us every day. Usually they hung out on our porch. On this particular day, Garfield was taking his nap in one of our herb gardens, between the irises and the rosemary. It was almost exactly a year ago.

A lot has happened since then. Our butterfly bush was blown down by the wind and now blooms from a horizontal position. Unfortunately, it doesn't photograph well in that position. The branches now grow upright from the ground, but the flower spikes still bloom in all directions as they did when the plant was a tree taller than I am.

Much worse than that, though, is that Garfield also disappeared this spring. Our neighbors started with four cats. One of them  had a kitten. Now the kitten is all they have left. I hate to think what happened to the others. I miss them all.