IT'S FIXING TO BLOOM!

These are pictures of the unusual plants in our yard. The former owners planted some giant octopus-shaped cactus plants. They're along the property line between us and our neighbors, and though they aren't my favorite plants, they're exotic and unusual, and I like that about them.

I was out of town a few days last week, and Milton called me. "You won't believe what's happened in our yard," he said. He went on to tell me that out of the middle of one of the cactus plants erupted a pole-looking thingie. "That thing grew at least two feet in one day!" He said the next day, the pole grew two or three more feet! Within days, it was at least 10 or 12 feet high. He couldn't get over it. On Friday night, he attended our annual neighborhood dinner and casually mentioned the pole thing in the middle of the plant.

"That's a century plant," a neighbor said excitedly, "and it's fixing to bloom!" (That's Southern for "It's about to bloom!") She told Milton a century plant blooms only once in its lifetime. "You just wait," she said. "You're going to have flowers up there."

I googled "Century Plant," and the info is fascinating. Century plants are usually found in the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts at higher elevations from southeastern California, to western Texas and south to northern Mexico on dry, rocky desert slopes.

And here, we have one in Florida!

The site said there will be yellow flowers composed of six petals, and they bloom June through August. Flowers grow in clusters and face upward at the end of horizontal branches, appearing only near the top of the stalk."

"This unique native plant has a tall, thin stalk from 10 to 14 feet high that grows from a thick basal rosette of gray-green leaves. The leaves are 10 to 18 inches long with long, sharp, terminal spines and shorter spines along the edges. The stalk can be up to 4 inches in diameter. Members of the Amaryllis Family, century plants take many years to flower, although not a century. The century plant provided Native Americans with a source of soap, food, fiber, medicine and weapons."

"Agavi americana, can grow up to 40 feet high with much longer leaves and larger stalk. This American Century Plant is sometimes grown in southern California as an ornamental. It is used commercially in Mexico as a source to produce the liquors tequila, pulque, and mescal."

Last night in church, Milton used our century plant as a sermon illustration. He said that after many years of growing, a century plant finally produces beautiful blooms. He compared that with our lives, saying sometimes that's how it is, that some things take a long time, but they do happen.

Is there something good in your life about to happen? Or that has happened?