Mountain Laurel debut

I've been watching the business ends of our patch of Mountain Laurels for at least a month, and the exercise in deep observation made me increasingly despondent. Try as I might, I couldn't find many flower buds on these broad-leaved evergreens and that augured the second meager Laurel blossom year in a row. Alas, the lack didn't miraculously abate, and when the first flowers appeared this afternoon, they clearly weren't going to have a lot of company. Nor, I discovered on a walk around the large block, was the diminished Laurel fortune confined to our woods. To be sure, we'll be graced with at least some of these exquisite flowers... we just won't be overly graced. In fact, I think there'll be even fewer of them than appeared in 2019, a year that was not one to write home about in the Kalmia latifolia flowering department. Not to worry, however. The Laurels probably needed a long break. Hopefully, they'll be back in abundance next year.