Determination! May 11 2015

Sometimes you just have to admire the tenacity of something to reach higher and be more than it was intended to be. Such is the case with my elderberry bush planted in the back yard at the corner of the house in an old wooden cask. Until I could decide where to plant it in my yard, I just stuck it in the peck-sized cask half full of dirt so the roots wouldn't die before it found its permanent home. 

Last year, it made a feeble attempt to grow and actually had about three heads of tiny purple berries on it, but it was still in its temporary home awaiting the fence I'm trying to get put around the back yard to keep my furbabies home. 

This year, the 'bush' has decided to take matters into her own hands and expand. Just look at that brown trunk from last year and all those new green stems from this year! Heck, it hasn't even been fertilized and it's already twice as tall and wide as it was last year!

Every single branch has new blooms at the tips that will develop into delicious purple berries that I plan to make into jelly if the birds don't get to them first. The first picture below is bloom on my bush, the other two are what will appear later this year as the blooms develop first into masses of blooms, then a cluster of tiny berries.

Here's what I think she did and the evidence to help prove my case.

See that stem coming up from the ground outside the cask? I think the roots went down into the ground through the hole in the bottom of the cask or through openings in the side of it. In any event, the elderberry has escaped her 'temporary' housing and the roots are now growing in the ground underneath. You have to admire her determination in making herself perfectly at home where she sits. 

I'm hoping a name will pop up for her, but nothing suitable has presented itself yet. Any ideas? A living thing that has overcome its surroundings and thrived like this needs a really good one. 

Happy Sewing!

Betty