Tears and Torch

Many things in life bring tears to my eyes, funerals, weddings, stubbing my toe, Grey's Anatomy, and plants (the point of sharing this unknown truth).  This little fact may actually come as a shock to most people, but the ones that truely know me, know this to be a truth about me. 

Here is a case in point.....

I have two greenhouses, one is strictly business.  It's where all the J Lynn Nursery magic happens, where plants are born, grown, and shipped from.  The other greenhouse is more of a personal haven for me and my helpers.  This greenhouse is where all the funky little pet plants live that have absolutely nothing to do with business, it's all fun under the sun in this greenhouse.

The other day my sister was doing some work in there and wanted to show me what she had accomplished.  Now, I had not been in there all day or even the day before that.  She was telling me how she clipped back the strawberry plant and re-arranged some of the benches when I completely ignored her and gasped out loud.  I let out a little squeal, put both hands over my mouth, and started jumping up and down a bit.  Completely confused, my sister thought she had done something wrong.  She tried to get words out of me but my full concentration was on my Torch Cactus in bloom! 

At this point I grabbed it off the shelf and placed it on the center bench to get a better look.  There I stood in complete glee staring at Torch with tears in my eyes.  Yes, a plant has made me cry.

This cactus was a gift from a dear friend of mine.  He bought it for me, along with a couple other cacti, on a trip to Arizona.  The tears were of pure joy that it actually bloomed and of course remembering my friend, whom I haven't seen a quite a while.  When I received this gift I was worried that I would not be able to get it to bloom and my friend would be disappointed, but it had bloomed and he is gorgeous.  :o)

Here are a couple pictures of it:

This is Torch on the first day I noticed the bloom, the flower had already started closing for the night.

This is day 2.  The second flower had opened up and we got a good look at it this time.