About 15 years ago I visited a client agency in Santa Barbara, California, and provided some training to the staff there. They had an open office area, and one of the women had a plastic bag spread on the floor next to her desk with a few flower bulbs and green leaves. They looked like onions. I asked what they were. She said they were cannas bulbs. I didn’t even know what that was. She asked me if I wanted to take some home with me.

Of course I did. When I got home, I planted them in a pot and after a few weeks green shoots sprouted from the pot. They multiplied and eventually, over the course of a year, the pot was full of green plants.

As the years went by, at various places I lived, I would plant the cannas plants in the yards just to get them out of the pot. They always grew well and multiplied fast with new shoots, but never had any flowers.

Every time I did that I would keep one bulb back and put it into the pot, where it spread again. The pot stayed with me as I moved. I went through this cycle of keeping one in the pot at least five or six times over those 15 years. You can see the pot with the current stand of cannas in the background of the picture.

In the foreground, however, you see the cannas bush that came from the last time I emptied the pot. This time, and for the first time ever, I got blossoms. Yellow flowers. I know they will all be yellow, since they all came from one single bulb.

What joy I get from cherishing a single plant that long and finally see it bloom!