Happy Valentine's Day

Several years ago on impulse I bought a supermarket rose bush. You know the ones, they are on a rack just outside the door, dozens of them, their sparse twigs sticking out from the plastic wrapped around their roots. After walking past them for several weeks, one day I decided eight bucks were worth taking the chance so I brought one home and planted it in the garden where it would get as much sun as possible.

That first year it might have sprouted a couple of leaves and that's about it. The plant has never done very well outdoors and grows very little and never blossoms as far back as I can remember. Still I have kept it, dutifully bringing it indoors every winter and taking it outdoors again in the spring.

During its second winter here it surprised me with a flower in February as if it were sending out a Valentine greeting.

This is the one from Feb. 12, 2013.

One you could accept as a coincidence, but it hasn't been just one. Every February since the first one the plant has blossomed in the second month within a week either way of Valentine's Day.

So this year, the plant gave me my usual Valentine a few days ahead of the 14th and it's especially welcome this winter, a splash of color in the grayest January and February of recent memory.