what many discard I treasure

Sometimes nature kicks out a freak even in flowers. If you like, a crippled flower; not unlike myself with an atrophied left leg. When these flowers pop up in my garden, I give them special attention so that they can live a full and happy life. There are times that I am completely surprised by the results as I was this year. One of our very young and recent plantings came up with the wackiest of blooms.
This recently planted Hydrangea set up three blooms all of which were anything like a complete and healthy looking Hydrangea flowers. I had given this plant a lot of love, water, fertilizer and many acid baths to change the colour from a normal white to a bluish colour.

These images convey the bloom it presented me. Though an abstraction of the normal Hydrangea flower, I was still very pleased by how it rewarded me.
If this flower, as handicapped as it is, can still provide such beauty, screaming that life has meaning and more so when loved, how could it be different for any other living thing?
Love is a powerful and nourishing force on everything it touches. The rewards in flowers may not be as stunning or showy as in healthy examples but the rewards are there none the same. In the realm of compassion sometimes, the reward is even more gratifying. Love is such a powerful thing on all that it touches. This must be "good stewardship" were love touches even the earth we walk on.

Therefore, I haven't shown you my big healthy Hydrangea shrubs, rather this stilted and abstracted bloom that I find equally as interesting if not more when looking at it in the abstract. The fact that my affection for it enabled it to reproduce makes it that much more special.

My beautiful crippled Hydrangea Bloom

This Hydrangea only had the five big blooms with this amazing center.

GP