Morning Glory
Ye Shengtao

I have been planting morning glories for three to four years now. Asmorning glories can not be planted on cement floors, I plant them in many claypots. As there is no place to get new earth to add in, the earth in the pots isused repeatedly year after year. I talked with a man from the north who grewplants beside the railway and I wanted to buy some earth from him, but he refused.

So I bought a bag of superphosphate bone meal from a flowerer shopin town at Town God's Temple Street and mixed it into each pot as a substitutefor new earth.

The clay pots are placed next to the wall with more than ten threadsthat hung from the top of the wall. Each thread is spaced seven or eight cun(1) apart for each vine to climb. This is a new method this year. In theprevious years I used to put my pots on a wooden support about three chi (2)high. In this way the vines of the morning glories would climb to the top ofthe wall easily. The wines which grew later would get tangled with the olderones, and often hung down for their own weight. But the tender vines at theends would again lift their heads like many tiny snakes and climb upwards and againget tangled with the delicate vines. When they could no longer bear their ownweight, they would play the same old trick. Therefore, there were often thickpiles of rich leaves and flowers on top of the wall, far superior to the middlepart of the wall. This year they began to climb from the bottom of the wall,but they must climb at additional three chi this time. In this way things maybe much better. And what is more, there will be a wall covered evenly withleaves and flowers.

Having crawled out between the peals, within one month the fastgrowing vines are already as tall as the wall, and flower buds as big as ricegrains are found on every leaf stalk. Then they will become yellow and fadeaway. According to my several years of experience, I know that the first flowerbuds do not blossom. Later on when the vines are more developed and stronger,the buds will blossom.

This year the morning glories’ leaves are exceptionally green andtransparent. And they are as thick as if they had been cut from velvet. Surelythis is due to the superphosphate bone meal. It can be deduced that the flowersblossoming later will be richer than those in previous years.

But my interests are not focused on watching flowers. Having plantedthese small flowers, the courtyard has become a place that I am anxious tospend time in. After getting up in the morning and after my office work, Iwould stand there watching subconsciously. The vines spiral around the linenthreads. Tender flower heads poise still and motionless. But actually they arecrawling upwards all the time. At first they twist this way and after a momentthey would turn the other way. One tender wine head was the size of a mung beanlast night and when I see it this morning it has already grown a new vine of abouttwo or three cun. Picking one or two small fuzzy leaves, I find at the bottomof the stalk, there is already another tender vine head as big as a mung bean.Sometimes I pick out a mark on the wall and think: tomorrow it may not grow anyfurther. But to my surprise, it has climbed past the mark by the next day. Theovernight hard work of the "the Vitality of Life" could not bedetected. But after moments of careful observation, I feel I have a tacitunderstanding of "the Vitality of Life". Gradually, my thoughts aboutthe morning glories become too much to mention and I have only to watch thiswall full of green leaves.

Even if there are no flowers, my interests are not reduced. Letalone other days when they blossom they will be more flourishing than in previousyears.

(1)and (2) chi and cun, units of measurement, a chi is equal to tencun.