What the Morning Glory learned from the Rose

Once upon a time, a Morning Glory wound its budding vine through a hydrangea bush, and opened its white cheerful bloom against a background of blue.


"Good morning!" the Morning Glory chirped to the hydrangeas. But the hydrangeas stayed silent. They were too busy being blue to chat.

Suddenly the Morning Glory felt embarrassed. What was she doing in a hydrangea bush? Surely she didn't belong there-- nothing about her white trumpet bloom matched anything around her. "I'm sorry," she stammered out to the hydrangeas. "I wasn't thinking. I'll go."

"What you ought to do," a bloom on her left mused in a very hydrangea-ish voice, "Is change your bloom. No flower ought to be so hideously DIFFERENT as you."

The Morning Glory was eager to be accepted, so she agreed immediately. "Yes-- yes I'll try!"

And she did try. She didn't bloom in the first hours of the morning, as she always used to do. Instead, she tried to be like the hydrangeas, and keep her bloom open in the heat of the day. It was terribly hard-- the sun baked her gentle petals and it was all she could do to keep from curling up her blossom. But she hated being different, so she tried to be like everything around her.

So there was no flower to greet the morning.

Beneath the hydrangea bush was a dandelion, and it watched the Morning Glory struggle for weeks to change herself. Finally, the dandelion, who by now had dried and fluffed, asked the Morning Glory, "Why are you trying to be like the hydrangeas?"

"No flower wants to be so hideously different," the Morning Glory replied, from her exhausted, sun-baked perch. "I just want to be the same. You should try. You're a weed. You should try to be like us flowers."


And the dandelion suddenly felt very embarrassed. He had never thought of himself as a weed before. "What can I do to be more like a flower?" he asked, ashamed.

"You shouldn't let your seeds fly off when you're blown by the wind," she said, grumpily. It was difficult for the Morning Glory to feel anything but grumpy while she was trying so hard to be different. "No one wants more weeds."

So the dandelion made up his mind to hold on tight to his seeds. Even when a little child picked him and happily crowed to her mother that she was going to "blow the flower and make a wish!" the dandelion didn't let his seeds go.

And the child was disappointed because there was nothing to wish on.

But the story of the Morning Glory and the Dandelion spread to the other flowers, and soon, all the flowers were trying to change themselves so that they could be more like something else.

The dahlias tried to flatten their petals, so that they could be more like the daisies.


... And the girls who wanted dahlias in bouquets were disappointed to find them so flattened.

Meanwhile, the daisies felt that they ought to grow in cultivated gardens, like the dahlias. They abandoned their spots in the fields, and in the woods, and next to streams, and determined that they would only grow in greenhouses.


... And there were no wildflowers to welcome those that had walked off the beaten paths.

The desert flowers felt they should try to grow where it rained...


And there was no color in the desert.

The water lilies tried to grow in the heat--


And they dried up and shriveled.


The crocuses were ashamed to be the first flowers to bloom after winter, so they tried to bloom later, like everything else--


And there was nothing to trumpet the arrival of spring.

The clover tried to be bigger and grander--


And its blooms were made ragged by the wind.

The columbine tried to become more simple and round--


And the hikers brushed by it without a moment's notice.

All over the world, the flowers tried to change, but it only made them paler, feebler, weaker, and more ordinary. Even the hydrangeas had given up their blue.


Finally, the only thing left to plant in the window boxes were silk flowers that people made with machines--


But even the silk flowers were a weak memory of what had been. No one could remember what the real flowers had looked like when they had all been happily themselves.

There was only one flower left in the whole world that had not tried to change itself:


Even when the other flowers had told the Rose she should try to rid herself of thorns, or give up her scent, or try to flatten her petals, she grew on just as she always had: thorny, perfumed, and color wonderful.


Finally, the Morning Glory-- who was still feebly trying to be like the hydrangeas-- made up her mind that she'd much rather be like the Rose. There was just something about the Rose. The Morning Glory summoned all her remaining strength and unwound her vine from the hydrangea bush. She presented herself to the Rose and asked, "Rose-- how can I be like you?"

The Rose was joyfully basking in the sun, and took a moment before looking down at the worn out, bedraggled Morning Glory. Every petal on the Rose looked like a smile-- she couldn't help being happy.


"What is it you want to do?" she asked the tired little Morning Glory.

"I just want to be different. I just want to be better. You're the only beautiful one left," the Morning Glory wept. "How can I be like you?"

The Rose sighed a breath of sweet scented air, and looked kindly at the Morning Glory. "You must never be beautiful like me," she said.


"You must only be beautiful like you. You must greet the day, as only you can. You must be white, when all around you is blue. You must cover trellises with your vines and brighten the gardens. You must twist into a bud in the heat of the day to protect your glorious trumpet from fading. Why would you want to be beautiful like me when you are made to be beautiful like you? You must be a spark of difference."

But the Morning Glory cried, "I don't want to be hideously different."

The Rose turned its face back to the sun and said, "To be different is what it means to be beautiful."


"You can say that," the Morning Glory said. "Everyone knows you're the most beautiful flower."

"But I will fade," the Rose said gently. "I will age, and my petals will fall. Even now, I'm growing older. But every petal that falls will carry with it my joy of living. Even when I fade, I will tell a story of a beautiful life. I have loved being me."


"Now go," the Rose said to the Morning Glory. "Go grow in the way only you can. You must be beautiful in your own way." The Rose smiled. "You will love it."

And so the Morning Glory found a place to grow that felt comfortable, and felt right. She bloomed in the morning, greeting the sun as it rose. She wound her vines up garden trellises and through hydrangea bushes and within the junipers, and when she bloomed, she was something different, and something beautiful.