Let It Grow

Kathy Boys, Class of 2023

In April 2020, while in the midst of the pandemic shut down, like many nature lovers, we spent an abundant amount of time in our back yard.  One day a stray plant appeared growing in our pot of colorful snapdragons.  Being curious, we let it grow, and grow, it did, flowering a dusky pink cluster in late summer.  It actually looked ridiculous towering above the snapdragons, but numerous insects fought over this cluster of flowers, so we let it be.  While we had no idea what it was, we assumed it was a native plant and had arrived by the wind or via a bird.

The next spring and all subsequent years, more and more of this flowering plant appeared growing through the cracks of the flagstone patio at the low end of the yard where we kept our container pots of tomatoes, basil, peppers, and okra.

In the winter/spring of 2023 while attending the BPTMN classes, we discovered this sweet-scented plant was Pluchea odorata, commonly referred to as marsh fleabane.  It dawned on us that this water loving plant had thrived in the snapdragon pot because we watered it regularly, and that the seeds of that original plant found their niche growing with wild abandon in the flagstone patio because water was trapped underneath. Nurturing all manner of critters, I decided to document as many as I could, photographing more almost daily.  Reflecting back on how it started, I am glad we decided to let it grow and help in some small way to nurture our declining insect populations. 

The pollinators started visiting, and then their predators appeared.  Eastern cottontails lived hidden underneath, while funnel spiders, and even dragon flies hunted underneath.

All of this abundance of life in a 2’x5’ area, and because a lone seed on the wind found its way to our snapdragon pot.  Nature’s mysteries are all around us, and sometimes, the best thing to do is just let it grow!