Pictures of Lilly... Make My Life So Wonderful!

Todays post is called "PICTURES OF LILLY "

We are not the painting by Alphonse Mucha

Or the awesome song
by the The Who


But rather pictures of the awesome lilies we grew on the street this summer.
I have been waiting to make this post for a couple weeks now as I was unsure how things would turn out. We picked up 4 bulbs at the Garden show and paid $1 each for them. I really wanted to grow these because they reminded of my grandmother and the orange lilies she grew at her house. We were super excited with they all sprouted. These are some pretty showy flowers and we were very worried that the Grumple would not let them survive. I said to myself we just get one bloom and it last long enough for me to take a picture I will have gotten our $4 worth. As the summer progressed they grew and grew. The more they grew the greater the odds that the Grumple woud stop by. Well at one point he did. Mr. Grumple got hold of one of them and broke off the top of the plant and took us down to 3.
We know it was going to happen.
The question was would any survive?

As they were just about to bloom Mr Grumple came running down the block in a fit of rage.
Several of our plants were dug up including another one of the lilies. I was sad to see this but it happens when you put stuff out on the street. Then something magical happened. While watering the next morning a girl (I think her name was Kara) came up to me and told me that at around 3 AM the night before she was coming home and found a lot of our plants destroyed and littered all over the sidewalk. She told me that she had replanted the lilly bulb in an effort to save it and took the other plants home and made a bouquet with what she could salvage from the dug up plants. She proceeded to pull out here digital camera and show me pictures of the flowers that the Grumple had trashed. It was absolutely magical to see someone make lemonade out of the Grumple's lemons! Because of her actions I was able to to take the broken lilly inside and it later bloomed in our living room. (Thank you Kara for doing this. You made my day so much better!)

So now were were down to two of the four lilies. Well just before July 4th the first one bloomed. I was sooooooo excited! I wanted to see the lilly that reminded me of my grandma. Well it turned out that a yellow one had bloomed first. I took some photos and waited for the next morning when I knew the orange ones would bloom. I rushed out in the morning to see them and found that someone had picked all of the blooms off of the flowers. I do not mind people picking an occasional wild flower but to take 9 on the lilly blooms their first day really irked me. I am ashamed to say I was pretty angry for a couple days after that. I had not been this angry about a plant since I was a little kid and grew a punkin in the back yard only to have it smashed by some mean neighborhood kid right before it was ready to pick. Anger really defeats the whole purpose of planting flowers. I know this inside but sometimes it gets the best of me. Guerrilla Gardening is an experiment in "letting go". You have to. This however was the one time I could not. I really wanted to see the orange lilly bloom. It reminded me of my grandma and I wanted that moment so bad. But it was not to be...at least not yet.

There were still a few buds left on the plants. For the next week, every day I got more anxious. Would the Grumple return to reek havoc on the remaining two? Would I ever get to see that orange lilly? Well around July 8th the orange lilly bloomed. And did it ever! It currently has two beautiful blooms on it and I bet by tomorrow there will be another. If you have looked at the Flickr Photos you know I went a little overboard with the photos (believe me I edited out a lot more!) but I finally got my "Pictures of Lilly". The Grumple can never take it away! (No matter what happens on the street the rest of the summer!)

This post is dedicated to my grandmother Alice Oakley. I miss you a lot.