Kind of makes you proud!

Years ago, we planted six Pride of Madeira plants (not to be confused with "Pride of Madeira") in the back yard (three each of two varieties). These plants are seen a lot on the sides of Southern California freeways. They produce large spikes blue of flowers. They don't need good soil or a lot of water. They were perfect for our yard.

They grew and produced pretty flowers for several years.

The product description for their seeds on Amazon.com says that they can withstand temperatures down to 24-26°F. That is colder than we ever got.

Then came Sunday, January 14, 2007.

At 6:30 that Sunday morning we got down to 21.6°! We had never experienced such a freeze here. Ten or eleven valves on our water line broke. Those cost about $12 each to replace.

The Prides of Madeira didn't survive.

We were back to bare ground.

In the spring of 2008, I was mowing down the weeds. Among the weeds I noticed a bunch of fuzzy-leafed plants growing where the Prides of Madeira had been. I quit mowing there and let the little plants grow. It turned out that they were indeed baby Prides of Madeira.

They grew into cute knee high plants that year. Last year they grew larger and a few actually bloomed.

This year they are going to put on a spectacular show. They are starting to open up.

Here's a close-up.

It will be interesting to see how the two varieties mixed. So far, I don't see a lot of variation.