Every spring I start seedlings on my deck, which I transplant into all of my gardens and planters when they’re big enough (and the ground has warmed up enough). Somewhere around the middle of June this year I got distracted by something else and a few seedlings were forgotten in their trays.

Yesterday I noticed that the asters have finally started to bloom in my deck planters, with big blossoms of pink and purple. This morning I noticed that the little forgotten asters were blooming, too. That’s one in the photo. It’s about a centimeter across, a perfectly formed, Bonsai aster proportioned to fit its container.

Apparently no one mentioned to this little plant that she was too small to blossom! How many times do we listen when people tell us the things that we can’t do? Perseverance is about doing those things anyway.

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.” ~William Feather

“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.” ~Earl Nightingale

“Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” ~Jacob A. Riis

Have a wonderful Monday!