Gardening teaching patience to the wildly impatient, that would be me

Here are two excitements from the world of gardening chez Boud. One, indoors, is the final appearance of a tiny baby begonia leaf, after waiting nearly a year for the planted leaf, which was broken off in a cat related incident from the parent plant, to show whether it was over it and ready to grow.  

This is thrilling, since I have no access to the plant form, to replace the parent, you never know, with cats around.  So I can propagate it the easy way, just stick a leaf into potting soil, keep it moist and wait.  This leaf has doubled its size since I spotted it yesterday, so it's serious about growing.

And here's lavender in bloom, after three years of growing this plant in a pot.  It suddenly bloomed yesterday

This weird winter into summer no spring season, evidently, is what she was waiting for.  This on top of the white and yellow iris showing up after years, is a rapid series of lessons in just waiting. Don't just do something, sit there, is the moral of the story, I guess.

I do love to propagate house plants, partly because all the greenhouses and hothouses we used to get plants from, and the supermarkets with garden sections in winter, all went away, so access is much more limited now.  

It's limited to gardener's larceny, that is, swiping cuttings from other people's plants, or being given them. Or, as in the case of the dracaena, cutting a leaf as rental for taking care of the parent plant for a summer.  I now have my own, several inches high, all the cuttings succeeded.  Or propagating from your own established plants.  I give away a lot of cuttings, too, I hastily add.

And the burlap hanging planter is working out pretty well. I find that the best way to water is to aim the hose at the bottom of each burlap container, so as not to jostle the soil or the plant, but getting it all moist safely. Even though we've had rain, these little containers dry out rapidly on that warm wood fence, so I need to water daily.