Don't Know Whatcha Got... Till It's Bloomed

It's a known fact that if you put a twig in the ground in Thailand, in a month or two, you'll have a prize-winning hydrangea or lotus or coconut tree. Still though, it never ceases to amaze me.

When I moved in to my new house, there was this "stick in a bucket" on the patio. It was so demented and dead looking that I moved it over to the far corner of the pool, out of sight. Today, I woke up and it was covered with bright pink flowers.

The hardest thing to get used to though is there seems to be no "season" for blossoming... you know, like spring. Plants everywhere just say, "Oh... this seems like a good week for flowers!" Then, a week after that, they are as dull and green as they were before.

I have these 2 "skeleton trees" along my front walk, with absolutely not a leaf on them. Now, I see they are growing green leaves everywhere, and white flowers are blossoming. Quite nice actually.

I remember when the local expatriate population had a hissy fit when the Thais came to the prettiest tree-lined beach on Thailand's East Coast, and scalped all of those gorgeous, leafy trees down to nothing but a trunk. It was suddenly a beach lined with telephone poles. Angry letters poured into the newspapers, and everyone nearly lost their minds.

Now, a year later, the trees are back to their old selves... threatening to drop 200-pound overloaded branches down on unsuspecting sunbathers, power lines, and pedestrians. Just the way we farangs like it.