Eric's Magic Moonflowers Reemerge

Eric's Magic Moonflowers, July 2011

  As is much of the rest of the country, Oklahoma is in the throes of a major drought and heat wave. I wouldn’t complain, except I read somewhere that, as Americans, we have the absolute right, nay, the duty to carp about the weather. Not that difficult when you’re trying to fit in your daily walk and it’s still ninety degrees at midnight.

My new motto is “embrace the discomfort.” Not that it provides much protection from the heat, but at least it’s a strategy. Not everything is going badly. My magic moonflowers are blooming again for the first time since 2007.

My mom died in 2007 and Marilyn insists that she hexed the moonflowers. When my parents lived here with us, starting in 2005, the vines behind my swimming pool teemed nightly with fragrant and beautiful moonflowers. Moonflowers only bloom at night, and only for one night. Still, we’d have seventy to ninety blossoms every night. This year’s moonflower crop began blooming on the 14th, the day before July’s full moon.

I don’t know if Mom hexed the moonflowers or why she would have hexed them. I suspect other causes. Whatever hexed them apparently expired because I counted seven blossoms tonight. The blossoms aren’t as full and fragrant as in years past. With this weather, how could they be? I’m just glad they’re back.

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Mavis' Magic Moonflowers

My Mother died in 2006 and Marilyn and I haven’t had any moonflowers since then. We have both blamed her for the absence of the gorgeous flowers. Today, Marilyn said, “I’m not planting any moonflowers next year. I don’t think they’re ever coming back.”

“Maybe I’ll try,” I said. “Surely Mom will forgive me for whatever it is she thinks I did.”

“You think you have a better green thumb than me?” Marilyn asked.

“No, but maybe it has nothing to do with having a green thumb.”

I got a resounding “Hmph!” from Marilyn.

When I noticed a new flowering vine today and pointed it out to Marilyn. “Do you have a clue what it is?”

“There’s one like it on the front fence,” she said. “Want to see it?”

I followed her out the door, to the fence surrounding the dog pen. We found the pretty little pentagonal bloom known as a Cardinal Vine plant, but we also found something else - a beautiful moonflower in full blossom.

Yes, it is the mystical season of autumn, the time when moonflowers are supposed to bloom. Maybe my Mother has finally forgiven whatever transgression she thought Marilyn and I may have committed and is once again blessing our gardens. Maybe! At least it’s what I like to think.

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