Each year, soon after I drag my giant Jade plant into the house for the winter, it explodes with delicate white flowers that grace my office for a couple months before fading away. I never knew Jade plants could bloom, and only stumbled onto the secret by accident.
First, they’ve got to be pretty old before they’ll even think about blooming. This one that blooms so big each year was 10 years old before it threw its first flower. Now, at close to 20, the blooms get better and better each year.
Second, the secret that I stumbled on was hardship. Jade is a tropical plant, and if the frost gets on it, it’s done. Here in Colorado, our evenings get cold all year, and in the fall, they can get down close to freezing pretty early in September. The trick is to watch the forecast carefully, and leave it outside in the sun and cool nights as long as possible. Then, when you’ve waited as long as possible, and made the plant suffer through as many cold nights as possible without freezing it, you bring it in and put it close to a nice sunny window for the winter.
And wait a week or so.
Something about that combination triggers the plant to put nice pink and white buds out, that eventually open up into the delicate white flowers.
We’re like the Jade plant in many ways I think. Deep branches with heavy scars come with the wisdom required to foster the delicate flowers of beauty in life. Our early years are focused on the intense growth and development of youth, with little time for tiny beauty that we might be able to coax from our experience. Spending some time out in the cold, suffering through close encounters with killing frost, helps us to understand the real value of the warm side of the sunny winter window.
With enough years, and with enough scars, we learn to flower as well. Not the big showy flowers or the stunning growth of youth, but the delicate white buds and flowers that can only happen if you stumble on the trick.
