[Miracle Gardening] The story of how I, a stingy and cheap amateur, triggered a 'life bug' in plants during the scorching heat of Hamamatsu

I am a complete amateur when it comes to gardening.
Nevertheless, the column I uploaded in May about cyclamens continues to be read even now. I am grateful for that. At that time, I wrote about 'my cyclamens that bloomed out of season in spring.' But the story didn't end there.

Right now, in the middle of this sweltering midsummer, a major event that defies common sense is continuing to happen at my front door.

What I am talking about today is not the 'correct way to grow' plants as written in specialized gardening books. It is a documentary about the gritty life force of plants that responded with their lives to me, an amateur who was just stubbornly stingy, cheap, and unwilling to give up.

Common sense #1: 'Garden cyclamens' that shouldn't bloom in midsummer

Last autumn, I bought three pots of garden cyclamens: red, white, and purple. After I repotted them into slightly larger pots, they bloomed beautifully from winter through spring. When the flowers finished, most people would typically discard them, thinking, 'Thanks for another year.'

However, my 'cheap god' whispered in my ear at that moment: 'Hey, the leaves are still green. Isn't it a waste to throw them away?'

I stopped throwing them away and just kept watering them every morning for some reason. Then, as I wrote in my May column, they bloomed again with even more splendor than in autumn or winter, as if exploding.

I thought, 'Well, maybe that happens because it's spring.' But the real show started after that.

Right now, the Japanese archipelago is experiencing a heatwave. Here in Mikkabi-cho, Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, it is incredibly hot. In this harsh midsummer that even humans struggle with, those red, white, and purple cyclamens under the eaves of my front door are still blooming vividly, as if they've gone mad.

Cyclamens are known as 'winter flowers.' Normally, they should wither their leaves and go dormant in summer, or rot and die from the heat.

When I looked into it, it seems that by continuing to stingily water them after spring, the plants got confused, thinking, 'Wait? Don't we need to sleep?' and switched into a non-dormant mode. The mild climate of Hamamatsu combined with the shaded, well-ventilated environment under the eaves of my entrance turned into a miraculous summer retreat for them.

Plants do their 'best to survive' in the environment they are given. They were sprinting through the summer at full speed without even changing their clothes.

Common sense #2: 'Sun Parasol' that turned into dead branches in winter

The miracles in my home aren't limited to cyclamens. There is another protagonist.
A pink flower I bought early last summer, the Sun Parasol. I didn't know until recently that its real name is Mandevilla. This flower is often sold at gardening shops as an 'annual.' As expected, it couldn't withstand the Japanese cold in winter and turned into miserable, dry, dead branches. Normally, it would be headed for the trash.

But here, too, my stinginess exploded. 'It looks like a dead tree... but aren't the roots in the soil still alive?'

From then on, I kept watering the dead-looking wood every single morning throughout the dead of winter. To outsiders, I was just a suspicious person. My family was exasperated, asking, 'What are you watering?'

However, a miracle happened this spring. Small green buds poked their heads out from those dry, dead branches.

The explosive power from there was tremendous. The roots that had grown over a year were incomparably stronger than those of a new seedling, and as 'second-year roots,' they must have unleashed their power all at once. Currently, the Sun Parasol is blooming with more than twice as many flowers as last year, dyeing my front entrance in pink.

It doesn't have to be perfect. It's okay to be cheap. If you're alive, there can be a great comeback.

I am not a gardening professional. I am an amateur who knows nothing about pruning techniques or fertilizer ratios. I have just been pouring water every morning, driven only by the stingy feeling that 'it would be a waste' to let them go.

However, the plants taught me something.

That "no matter how much people call you unconventional, and no matter how tattered you become like a withered branch, as long as your roots are alive and you stay connected to water, a season will come when you bloom more than twice as much as before."

To those of you whose hearts are about to break right now. To those who are blaming yourselves because you care about what others think. To those who think, "I've already withered away." It's okay not to be perfect. It's okay not to live by the textbook.

Perhaps my stingy way of watering triggered a "life bug" in the plants. But the same thing can happen to humans. Sometimes you bloom in a season no one expects. The summer cyclamen and the winter sun parasol prove that.

My front porch is, once again, unconventionally colorful today. It's not a neatly manicured garden. It's an explosion of vitality born from an amateur's stinginess.

If there is anyone out there who thinks, "Is it all over for me?", I want you to come and see my front porch just once. Cyclamen are blooming in summer, and the sun parasol that was a withered branch in winter is smiling. Roots are much more tenacious than people think. I learned that from the plants this summer.