When I got married in 2017, my husband and I decided on a tree planting for our unity ceremony. It was important to us to do the ceremony, but we do NOT (I repeat DO NOT) have a green thumb. I was a little nervous shopping for the tree that would represent mine and Evan's love story and, let's be honest, I didn't want it to die in the first month (year? days?) of marriage.
I had to choose the right tree.
I half-assed read the descriptions on the pots, did some light googling, and that's when I landed on the Desert Rose. It looked like a hardy little tree -- had some cool leaves, apparently required low maintenance, and could be kept in a pot all its life (we wanted to make sure we could bring it with us wherever we lived!).
Our wedding came and went and it wasn't until FIVE YEARS later that I realized just how perfect the Desert Rose is as a representative of marriage.
In the first five years of its life, not unlike our marriage, our "Love Plant" (as we call it)
endured lots of seasons. It's been in the care of unskilled gardeners, it's been left in the dark, it's been in the beating heat. Wind. Droughts. Floods (like, literally). This plant endured the pressure from outside sources -- neighborhood cats, ants, mold. This plant is the best representation of our marriage, and in marriages in general, because even after the toughest conditions, it's forgiving and while the initial allure was "it won't die quickly," the Dessert Rose is the best because it blooms most beautifully when you listen and meet its most basic needs.
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