An Azalea in Catahoula

An azalea in Catahoula had become an obstacle to mowing, so my mom and I decided to dig it up one morning and transplant it somewhere on the island.

It didn’t look like much in the ground, and we thought we’d make short work of it, but we dug and dug and dug, and the stout bush barely budged. We couldn’t believe how stubborn it was. We threaded a heavy chain through the azalea’s larger roots and tied it to the hitch of my dad’s truck . . . petal to the metal, we still couldn’t pull it out. What else could we do? We pried it from the dark clay root by root with our bare hands.

Into the bed of the truck went the uprooted bush, then across two bridges and onto the island. We picked a spot by the long gravel drive that runs down the edge of the cane field, and, because we were so tired of digging by that point, the new hole that we managed to dig for the azalea wasn’t as wide or as deep as it should have been. Stepping back to examine our work, we could see that the battered bush was leaning to one side concerningly. And we probably could have planted it a good foot lower in the ground than we did: its pitiful roots were half-exposed. We pressed the leftover dirt around the base of the crooked creature and called it a day anyway. The azalea would have to fend for itself.

And for the first few years, the azalea merely survived, never sending out leaves or flowers, although not really dying either. We’d laugh when we drove past it. Five years go by. Ten years go by. Blooms, shyly, start appearing in the spring; twigs starts hinting at leaves, and we come around to the idea that that stubborn-as-chains azalea might still have some life left in her after all. Fifteen years go by. Twenty years go by. This morning I drove down the long gravel drive that runs down the edge of the cane field, and the azalea, I’m happy to report, has never been more leafy or more pink. Surely she will outlive us all.