THEN AND NOW

    Sometime, back in the 1970's, my mom bought a clematis plant which she planted on the south side of the house in a sunny spot. Weeding the flower bed, watering it everyday with soapy dish water, and occasionally cutting it back a bit was the extent to which it was cared for. It flourished and my mom always took great pride in it.
   In the late 1990's, shortly after my parents both passed away, my brother decided to raze the house and rebuild on the property. What was to become of the clematis? It grew right up against the house. So, I GUESS before the excavators with their heavy equipment arrived and demolished the house and everything in their way, Jeffrey and I went and dug out mom's clematis.
   Recently my youngest sister, Letty, and I were comparing clematis photos. She brought it to my attention that my clematis is actually mom's clematis! I totally forgot about moving mom's plant! I suppose it was the craziness of the time--dealing with a lot of "stuff".
   I found a photo of mom's clematis which she had taken probably sometime in the 1980's. It's a little faded. At first I thought that this couldn't be same plant, but Letty assured me that I had told her about rescuing it. The recent photo of my plant is actually 2 different species of clematis. The darker one is mom's and the lighter buds are from a plant I bought about 3 years ago.
   Needless to say, I'll be handling these two plants with TLC. I'll maybe even use a little bit of soapy dishwater on them.