Water Hyacinth

The water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) in our pond is in full bloom. This plant invites a love-hate relationship. Its beauty exists even before it blooms in its lush, broad, oval, polished, deep green leaves. But when it blooms for a few days in the mid-summer heat it pushes the beauty up a few levels with its spike of delicate, lavender flowers, perfectly complimenting the green of its own foliage as well as any other that happens to be surrounding, a Monetesque scene. However, it’s also one of the most invasive of plants, probably the most invasive of water plants, doubling in area every two weeks, sending out shoots that form additional plants that in turn send out shoots that form more plants and so on until they take over the surface of a pond. Several days ago I went out to thin the hyacinth, as I already have done a couple of times this season. But I saw that most all of the plants had flower stalks with buds soon to open, so I decided to let them show their stuff for the few days they bloom. When they’re spent, I’ll quietly thin them out, hoping they won’t notice, as I dump them into the compost pile to rot with the garden weeds and kitchen waste, a summer microcosm of the life cycle we are all a part of.