Playing Favorites

Let's just start by saying it would be ludicrous for me to choose a favorite plant. Absurd. A tenured horticultural professional such as me choosing sides in the glorious orgy of plants that is the palette of my vocation? Fie! Pfff! Tssch! I should rue the day any single specimen—no matter how beautiful— blinds my eyes to the vast spectrum of color, texture, and form—nay! the very breadth of Life ITSELF—which I've the good fortune to pass before my gaze on a daily basis.

All that being said, let's just continue by saying that this here Hydrangea is my favorite plant.

Whatever. I don't have to explain myself to you.

I know, I know, but just … shut up, okay?

Here's where I should probably launch into some poetic manifesto enumerating the virtues of Hydrangea serrata 'Bluebird' in order to justify its exalted place in my personal pantheon of plants: how its beauty surpasses all others; how the grace and longevity of its bloom charm for untold months on end; how I would settle for leaf or flower alone but the two together are twin arrows through my heart; how my own little Bluebird huddled in a cramped pot for years before finally taking root outside my bedroom window to wave good morning! in the first dawn breeze and goodnight in the evening's sough; how not a week goes by in the whole year where I don't fancy a glance in its direction, now swollen bud, now breath of blue, now burnished autumn spilled upon the leaves … and now rest. Winter's rest. A rustle of paper lacecaps in the cold.

But I'm not going to do that.

Because the truth is as soon as you try to justify or explain why something is your favorite, the purity of your conviction gets all scribbled-over by the crayons of language. Like that! See what I mean? “Crayons of language”—what does that even mean?

It means I should just stop talking. Because discovering that something is truly your favorite, without preface or discourse, is a very rare occurrence in this world, and we'd do well to just enjoy it while it lasts.