On Monday, I woke up to an uproar of flowers. On the verandah, the bougainvillaea was blinding in pink and orange and porange (which I believe to be the ancient Greek word for pink and orange). Around the Savannah, the yellow poui returned in the manner of an invasion. The flowers not only made thick carpets around the trees, they made it across the road to the non-poui side and filled the drains. The saffron-gold golden shower was almost intimidating in its brilliance. The cat's claw vine was like yellow fire over trees and rooftops.

The petrea - well, what to say, since all I ever want is more petrea? But they did the Purple Walk at the Botanic Gardens all over again and then, seemingly overnight, took over the country.

There were magnificent tree-bouquets on side streets in St James, on hedges in Woodbrook. All of a sudden, they were in gardens, yards and parks everywhere. I haven't seen a strong oleander in ages and yet all tender and pink, here they were like it was an everyday occurrence.

I'm glad I haven't run into a red ixora. I think I'd faint. That is a red beyond me.

Many years ago, a man called Michael Pollan (you can't make this stuff up) wrote about how plants have manipulated humans into doing their bidding in his book The Botany of Desire. I - and many others - didn't quite buy the science, but it is a pretty story.

I think the flora of Trinidad is trying to get us to believe the world is beautiful and life is good. I definitely am not buying their argument, but it's a nice story I can tell myself. How kind they are.

But why have all the flowers wheeled and come again?

The weather has been hostile of late. The heat seems more likely to kill than encourage growth. I am not a knower of plant behaviour, so I have no insider information. What I do know, what I am absolutely sure is true, is that nature is adaptable. I don't know what the sky and the land said to the trees; I know only that the trees responded extravagantly. Aggressively, even.

Not only am I not a knower of plant science, but I am genuinely terrible at growing things. I have all this love and joy in their presence because I know they and those who care for them are more evolved species than I. They understand change. They accept the vagaries of weather, and they keep going.

There's no veiled metaphor here. Why is it so difficult to be more like plants?

Adaptability is very, very hard. Who made it this hard when one of the things we all know is that change will happen? It's so determined to happen, they say it's inevitable. As in not evitable. We cannot avoid it. It all seems rather unfair to stick us with a terrible fate we can't outrun.

But I guess that's why we're supposed to go the plant route and bend with the wind, grow deep (and down) looking for water, turn to find the light.

While we do scarcely anything to figure out how we're going to survive climate change and adverse environmental occurrences, the flowers (how often will I get to say this) are literally waving from the hedgerows.

On Tuesday, I saw