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Yucca cernua preparing for a flower show April 09, 2022. It's fun to observe and learn the habits and cycles of perennial plants – while many of them reliably bloom every year once they reach their second year (or even in their first year), others follow more particular patterns. I was reminded of this by our nodding Texas soapwort plants this year. Four years ago, I started some of these yuccas from seed, and by the next spring, I had four year-old plants to place in the garden. I put two of them in our original Houston rock garden, and two in a border at the base of a Texas persimmon. The ones in the rock garden grew faster, but both sets proved strong and hardy, growing well beyond the space I envisioned for them (but that's typical for me). Last year, one of the rock garden set bloomed for the first time, treating us to a nice display of its nodding white flowers. So I figured we'd see the whole lot of them burst into flower this year, but no such luck: this time, one of the set by the persimmon decided to send up a flower stalk (it has a way to go before actually blooming), while the others seem content to sit out the year. So now I'm tempted to number my plants, and see how they sequence their flower shows. Is it the one that was happiest the previous year that decides to bloom? Or do they follow a predictable pattern of blooming once every two or three years? Check back here in years to come – I plan to document it for myself, and for you!

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