Mining For Hidden Gems

I have learned so much about teaching and learning by observing nature (Read Goose Liver Pedagogy , Butterfly Facts for a Teacher and Untitled  for other musings on nature and teaching) Last year I hired someone to trim my trees. I was so desperate to get the job done that I just went with the random person who had left their card on my door and wasn't asking for a lot of money.  When I came home I was shocked to see how they had pretty much hacked all of my trees down without any attention to aesthetics or shape. I was sure I had lost all of my crepe myrtles. But a couple of weeks later I began to see signs of branches and leaves coming back! The trees bloomed all summer and I was relieved that I hadn't lost them. When winter came, the crepe myrtles naturally lost their leaves and became bare again. But as Spring approached, I began to worry that most of them would not bud or bloom again. There was no sign of new growth. In mid-March, I went on a closer inspection and noticed