30 years ago my aunt planted a particular species of dwarf crocus all over her front yard. The squirrels would dig them up, then bury them somewhere else. Now, every Spring, her entire neighborhood is full of dwarf crocuses. She's been dead a few years, but I suspect that her old neighborhood will bloom every Spring for a long, long time.

We need a +beautiful for this story.

As a follow up, when my aunt died and my sisters and I prepared her house for sale, I dug up a dozen or so crocuses from her lawn and planted them in my front yard where they have been spreading for the past several years. It just happened to be Spring time and they were easy to find. I'm in the process of selling my own house now, and downsizing, but in the contract, I plan to stipulate that I can come back next spring when the crocuses are blooming and take a dozen or so with me to my new home.

I hadn't really thought about it, but I now realize that passing plants from generation to generation has become a regular practice and powerful symbol among my family. I have some African Violets that were my aunts. She got them from my mother, when my mom died. My mom got them from her own mother. My grandmother got them from an old german refugee couple that they sheltered during WWII, then they stayed in the little guest apartment the rest of their lives. I hope my nieces and nephews will want them when I'm gone. Likewise, my former in-laws, whom I still love very much, gave me a lemon tree, a fig tree and a blueberry bush. The fig tree is a cutting from one they have grown in their own garden for many years. The lemon tree is in a large pot, as it must come inside for the harsh Maryland winters, but I will certainly dig up and take the fig tree (which is still small enough to move) and the blueberry with me when I find a new home. Similarly, there is a particular species of lily that my ex planted in our gardens that will come with me.

The sharing of living things between people and across generations is a powerful thing. There is both a sense of continuity and implied fragility. It takes effort and care to maintain them, but the process can be tremendously meaningful and rewarding.

That's beautiful man. Really, from my heart.

Thank you. Writing it down made me more aware of it and helped me appreciate it more deeply than I had previously. It's a nice island of meaning and continuity in what is otherwise a very uncertain time for me.

This is really cool. Also, some Jurassic Park shit.

I call shenanigans. No squirrel I know of has ever planted any flowers on my property. They dig all of them up.

Also, this is how The Last of Us will kick off, isn't it?

I guess it's a little late to go for +10 Old.

I'm amazed that a molecule as complex as DNA would survive that long, even under ideal conditions. I wonder if tropical or temperate seeds would survive in similar conditions, or if plants of the ice age steppes were particularly well adapted to survive extremely long, dry winters.