Dialogue on Peaceful Co-Existence

While driving over the mountains today, I deliberately shut off the radio. Both local and world news lately have been utterly disappointing, disgusting, and/or disillusioning. Is there any hope that all this jockeying for power, control and money will ever stop? That humans will dialog with each other instead of committing unspeakable cruel acts?

Locally, Virginia’s governor is officially supporting a proposed pipeline that would carry fracked gas from West Virginia to North Carolina. This monster pipeline would traverse steep mountains in our county, fragment pristine forests and pollute the cleanest streams anywhere in the Eastern US. Environmental groups across three states are fighting the pipeline, but the big energy companies have carefully prepared their path. They put laws in place that give them the right to seize land against the property owners’ will. This land-stealing method is called “eminent domain.”

Everyday, it seems, there’s more heart-breaking information and Nature is diminished a bit more by our incessant need for space and energy.

After I arrived in the city, this flower-covered fence caught my attention.

I found a place to park and walked back down the street to investigate.

Morning glories and pumpkin blossoms along the fence

The purple flowers rambling all over the fence, the pillars of the porch, and through nearby shrubs, were morning glories, specifically, Grandpa Ott morning glories.

This variety originated in Bavaria (Germany) and was gifted to the founders of the Seed Savers Exchange (a seed company) in the early 1970s by Grandpa Ott. It self-seeds and can become highly invasive. I read on one gardening site that just a few vines of Grandpa Ott’s morning glories produced thousands of tiny seedlings over the following years. They seem to be so invasive in Arizona, that the Arizona Department of Agriculture has prohibited the sale of morning glories in that state.

While I admired the proliferation of these beautiful flowers along the fence and up a pillar to the front porch of this house,

I could also see the beginnings of invasive spreading in the large holly shrubs and other tall bushes bordering the property:

morning glories spreading through the bushes

morning glories in the holly

Maybe the neighbors will appreciate sharing the purple bounty, maybe they won’t.

What was even more intriguing was the space-sharing arrangement Grandpa Ott had with a sprawling pumpkin vine that produced lovely yellow blossoms:

single pumpkin blossom

and exactly one large pumpkin just inside the iron fence:

pumpkin

If an invasive morning glory and a rambling pumpkin vine can dialog with each other and share precious real estate along one fence

co-existence along the fence

why is it so difficult for people to get along and share the one planet we were all gifted with?

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