Buds: The Potential of Developing into Something Beautiful

Every flower bud has the potential of developing into something beautiful. At this time, I have an array of buds in my  urban terrace garden, and the exquisite  bud in the photograph above is from my tree peony, Paeonia suffruitticosa, a shrub that is known to last longer than the gardeners that plant them, so at least I will leave some legacy. I had hoped to leave some legacy of meaningful writings, but often I fail to write about things that interest me as it might prove to be embarrassing, or hurt someone's feelings; and so these days, my muse is busy with my gardening endeavors and my peony tree, which I have had for only one year, has proved to be inspirational.
For a number of years I've had fun watching various vines trail up a pole at the northeast corner of my terrace. When I first started gardening I had Morning Glories and this annual vine gave me pleasure for a number of years, especially seeing their heart-shaped leaves and vibrant azure colored flowers. At that time, I was not a "morning person" and often missed the flowers, which were only open from dawn to mid-morning. However, Morning Glories had deep meaning for an elderly friend of mine who often recalled a poem she wrote about them in Catholic Elementary School, claiming the nuns wrote the last line - a punchline -which can be read (in her handwriting) below:

The Morning Glory vine's short life caused me to replace it with Clematis lanuginosa ('Canidia') which I  bought at USQ - The Union Square Greenmarket in New York City, but I have included a link to detailed information about this plant in this post. This vine trailed happily up the pole, and because it is a perennial, I enjoyed the flowers for years and even rendered a photograph that I took of it into a petite wrap-around greeting card as seen below:

This Clematis also provided inspiration for the design of  general all occasion large wrap-around cards as well as wedding invitations, program covers for special events as indicated in my paper brochure and is part of a mini-movie in my on-line brochure. A sample is posted below:

Information about purchasing these products is available on my web-site. These will be the last of the Clematis lanuginosa themed works, as this plant was attacked by web-worms whose unwelcome presence was discussed in a previous post. Fortunately, I was able to replace it with another Union Square Greenmarket find, the H.F. Young Clematis. A link is posted here to provide information on this plant but I do not know the grower who posted that link. I do know that I am looking forward to seeing the H.F. Young Clematis flowers if their beautiful buds (seen in the photograph below) are any indication of how gorgeous the flower will be.

What I said at the top of the post bears repeating, "Every flower bud has the potential of developing into something beautiful."