The thin one. Not it.

When my dear wife Karen and I were wondering what plant exactly to choose for No. 3 during this spring’s visit to favorite Liverpool nursery Ballantyne Gardens, we spotted a clipped down hibiscus.

Interesting.

I wondered what it would do in the ground.

When summer arrived, one of the shoots sprung up quite like a Jack-and-the-Beanstalk tale.

So I thought!

Wrong plant, said my dear wife Karen.

The one in the middle.

No, she said. We put the hibiscus a few feet to the right of that skinny one, which has been in the yard for years.

And then I found the right plant, not tall. Yet.