It’s unfortunate that the lovely caladium plants in this photograph are difficult to see because of the crape myrtle leaves on the tree next door. And, also unfortunate that, when the tree’s limbs are bare, it’s ‘way too early for those plants to be growing. So, you’ll just have to come and visit me in late spring or summertime to be able to completely enjoy how attractive they are.

Or, rather were. This photograph is from last summer’s planting.

Caladiums come in a wide variety of colors and sizes and shapes. For several years, I’ve purchased a variety of caladium plants in different colors and sizes, and planted them in this shady southeast corner of the house. They’ve thrived there, but are not really winter-hardy here. A nursery employee once told me that, if I mulched them really well, they could stand our relatively mild winter (it might freeze a time or two, but not a serious freeze). I’ve not found that to be accurate.

This spring, well, ‘way back early, early in the spring, I was at a nursery and found caladium bulbs. I could do that, I thought. I’ll plant the bulbs and grow lovely caladiums. I chose several varieties, bagged up three each, carefully labeled each bag, so I would know which ones I had, and took photos of the pictures on each box, to help me recall what each variety looked like, and happily paid for them.

A few weeks later, I thought Time to plant those caladium bulbs!! And I went out on a Monday morning and got to work. It had rained. Quite a bit. But I dug (and slipped and slid) into the mushy bed. It was a pretty messy bit of gardening, and I quickly lost track of which ones I was putting in which spaces. And, then, there was such a density to the dirt/mud, that I was pushing some of them down into the mire, and then I had to go and open up a big bag of top soil to cover them all up (and to try to soak up some of the water).

A few weeks later, I was at a nursery (thank goodness nurseries are considered to be Essential Businesses), and I saw they had caladium plants, inside their store (as opposed to outside, where the sturdier plants were). I told the nursery guys how I had planted my caladium bulbs a while back and nothing had come up yet. They looked soberly at each other.

“A mistake?” I said.

“They’re probably dead,” one of them said.

“So,” I said. “If I want to plant these (pointing to the wonderful variety of growing caladium plants), when would I put them in the ground?”

“May 1,” they said.

So, that, so far, is my plan.

In the meantime, I’m moving some concrete edgers (again, a little difficult to see, due to that leafy crape myrtle’s dappled shade). The tree’s shade slows down the growth of the grass, and I’m trying to move the edgers closer to where the grass actually is. That leafy area on the right-hand side is Strawberry Begonia, which is a great, winter-hardy plant that loves shade, grows well, and spreads all by itself with no extra work on my part.

Rainfall has been plentiful right now, and there was a big storm a couple of days ago, which made shoveling a new track for those edgers much easier.

As I was working, digging, filling in the old track with dirt I dug out for the new track, admiring the strawberry begonias on my right and the ever-faithful, reliable, delightful daisies on my left (out of frame), guess what I saw. Come on, guess.

This is a tiny, new, brave caladium. (If you double click on the photo just above, you can actually see this tiny caladium, just to the left of center.)

Now, I’m not expecting all of them (or, really any more of them), to come up. But, maybe, just maybe, a few more will rise up. At the very least, I’m going to wait a little beyond May 1 before I rush out to buy some of those fully grown plants.

It seems a little bit miraculous. (Hmmm. Is miraculous a “little bit” kind of thing? Truly miraculous? Sort of miraculous? Gigantically miraculous? Quietly miraculous? Personally miraculous?)

Given the information I was given a few weeks ago, at the very least, I can look at it and say, “Well, that’s a miracle!”

Maybe what seems like a miraculous thing to us, is just business as usual for God.