Will It Happen Already?! These Flowers Teach You Patience

By Jill Brooke

It’s really hard to have patience.

As David G. Allen so aptly put it, “Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in your mind.”

When I require patience, I always turn to flowers.

This image of a Shirley Poppy by Clive Nichols, one of the great garden photographers, takes my breath away. 

It also takes me somewhere else so that my mind isn’t racing with concern amid situations I really can’t control.

The fluttering feathery beauty of its petals beckons with a promise to just wait, good things come to those who wait. And you also notice that the other dormant flowers are unperturbed that their time hasn’t come quite yet. 

You can always look at a flower for solace and perspective. It will center you.

Then if you stroll in a garden, you learn even more. Pay attention.  Flowers bloom when they are ready. On their own time schedule.

Yes,  sometimes – um often – things can take too damn long to happen. Why is it that some people can get their house at 25 while it takes others decades longer?

When that occurs, I think about the beauty of other flowers that take a long time to bloom – often years.  Here are some examples.

1)  Queen of the Night

This flower from the cactus family doesn’t do anything for a full 364 days. But then it pops open with a big hello displaying eight-inch wide white flowers.

2) Kurimgi Plant

Waiting for this plant is like saying, “Okay, I will finish college and medical school” before it blooms. Because it only turns a special bluish-purple ever 12 years. However, when it does, it creates enormous joy to the people living near the mountainsides of South India.

3)  Giant Himalayan Lily

White and purples blooms explode on this 10-foot-tall plant every seven years.  Luckily, there are plenty of lilies that bloom all year. But that’s not the point. Nature is teaching us that some things take longer for some than others.

4) Fox Gloves

This glorious plant standing at five feet tall, with dangling trump-shaped flowers that sit daintily on the stalk are worth the wait. They are colorful and fun and enhance any garden. They are like friends that you only see every other year.

5) Forget-Me-Nots

This flower is so perfectly named. You’re not sure if it’s a whimpering plea or instead a bold statement. But maybe the later since how can you not see those bright little bluish-lavender flowers with their lovely corn colored interiors and think they are worth the wait.

With this flower, it also self-sows meaning that its seeds will spread and cover your garden when other flowers are saying good-bye.

It is another way that nature shows us how if you wait, you can get rewarded.  And with the Shirley poppy, it takes time for someone to capture the special moment. Proving once again how flowers teach us lessons about patience and there is virtue in mastering and learning those lessons.

 

Photo Credit: Clive Nichols, Pixabay