THE STRANGE CASE OF THE SOMETIMES PINK GERANIUMS.

I have white geraniums in my front yard. Have had them for about 3 years. I found them in a cracked pot - apparently one that fell off a truck that carried some one's belongings in a move from one house to another.

They’ve flowered beautifully in my yard these past 2 years after I finally got them out of their large cracked pot. They managed to stay alive over the short winter freeze in our area but stopped flowering at the end of December to begin again at the end of February. At first, I was covering them at night but later as I saw their impressive growth rate, I gave up taking that precaution.

So, you might say. Well, that’s nice but hardly remarkable – a lot of people have pretty geraniums. But I want to tell you something surprising about my flowers.

One day last December, the first wintering that these flowers did in my yard, I noticed a difference in their blooms. They were still mostly white but, from one day to the next, I saw them with a decidedly pink center on almost all the blooms. I was enchanted to see the change and thanked the flowers for such a beautiful color. Another rather strange change was the addition of some fine golden lines that look a bit like sunbeams in each bloom.  I wasn’t sure why they had a different December color but thought that perhaps they knew that they wouldn’t be flowering for a few months and wanted to put on a “good show.”

In January, the few remaining blooms disappeared with the cold weather. And at the end of February, they returned in full force and all blooms were totally white – just like they had been before.

This past week, at the end of November, my flowers made their annual move – from white to white with pink and tiny golden lines. I pointed it out to my husband. At first, he didn’t believe me because he had been in the yard the day before and remembered that the blooms were uniformly white. He was really surprised with the change and, also, with my story about the same thing occurring one year ago. He said I should take some photos – which I did. (They show some of the pink, but not as nicely as can be seen directly.)

The blooms had, in fact, turned partially pink, the very day after praying the rosary for Our Lady of Guadalupe. This was part of a neighborhood rosary chain, honoring Our Lady through a particular old image of Her (Una Virgen Peregrina), 60 or more years old.  The image is a long resident in our city that was carried by her current owner/caretaker to a home in our neighborhood. (Of course, at this time of the year, rosary chains are being enacted everywhere throughout Mexico and in US Mexican American neighborhoods.)

According to this particular tradition, the image of Our Lady stays in 45 neighborhood homes, 24 hours in each house, for 45 days and arrives along with a small group of neighbors who stop over to pray the rosary. This begins on Oct. 28 and finishes Dec. 11. On the 46th day - Dec. 12 - she returns to her permanent home for the final Anniversary Rosary. That night there's a huge celebration and even more neighbors attend.

I mentioned the association of the rosary to my husband and the possibility that the pinkish flowers actually were honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe. Pink is a favorite color for flowers that adorn images of Our Lady. (I noticed the same pink color change one year ago - also after the rosary prayers at our house, but I can't remember if it actually happened right afterwards or several days later.)

My husband was a bit doubtful about the association of the pink blooms with the rosary of Our Lady of Guadalupe but wanted to offer some kind of explanation of the strange occurrence. He said the energy must, somehow, be different at that time of year around our home.  Just why there would be different energy, but he couldn’t think up any particular reason.

So, who’s to say? Whatever the reason, the bright pink blooms with tiny golden lines are a winter gift of our geraniums to us and to the neighborhood where we live.

Update on Grandma Susan's sometimes pink geraniums (1-20-13).  Grandma's geraniums lived through several night time frosts with blossoms and all. All January blooms are only white just like they were before December.



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