We have a large honeysuckle in the backyard. It grows over a little metal trellis, which we had to replace because it was rusting through. Also, the bush had overtaken it, grown top heavy and had become unmanageable. So, a few weeks ago, we cut the thing back. We had to abuse it pretty well to extract the old trellis which was buried deep into the soil and supported by some rebar and other fantastic off-the-cuff solutions the previous owners had installed.
That was the better part of an afternoon.
Anyway, this evening while I was strolling around outside taking a break, I wandered over to see how it was doing. You’ll be pleased to know that it seems our honeysuckle is as hardy as most any of its kind.
It looks weird right now, and it will require a bit of training and some actual pruning — which hadn’t happened in a long, long while, apparently — but it is still green and shows signs of new leaf growth.
There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere. Feel free to fill in the blanks.
This honeysuckle has a crimson flower. And, like all honeysuckle in my adulthood, it doesn’t seem to have the amount of sweet nectar of the first ones I ever discovered as a child. Those all yielded yellow and white flowers back home, and they could be unruly masses, growing and thriving most anywhere. At our house growing up, the previous owners had strung honeysuckle along a set of clotheslines they didn’t use. It took years to get all of that out. But, in the process, you could enjoy the flowers. I still clearly remember learning about the treat inside those flowers. It’s a fond memory.
Honeysuckle always seemed its most fragrant right about the time that school wound down. Maybe that’s why I wandered over there tonight to check on it.
Anyway, the grading is now done. I have, in the last 10 days, read and evaluated some 650-plus pages of undergraduate work. A lot of it quite good, and some spectacularly so! Now I’m going to give my eyes a rest. Tomorrow I have to turn in the grades.
