Full and amazing day yesterday

Please vote if you haven't already. NJ voters who still have mail-in ballots at home please get them to a dropbox or, if you mail, specify you want a postmark. Particularly if you're in District 7, redistricted to bring many gop voters into a formerly juust about Democrat district.

 Meanwhile, yesterday. I returned the puzzle to the library and went to pick another, about Central Park 

And saw the parrot in the jungle puzzle I donated recently, there in the collection for someone else to struggle with, I mean enjoy

While I was there I checked the gallery for the current exhibit, some favorites 

She's a retired medical illustrator and you can see she's a good draftsman. Now she's exploding in color and collage and energy.

You'll notice the homage to the book reader there!

Home again and, after my walk,  I did the promised upstairs plant care in honor of my sister's birthday, including taking sansevieria cuttings. These are slow growers and when they get established I'll probably Freecycle them to some happy recipient.

The parent plant I grew from cuttings I took years ago from a friend's plant which I took onto the deck for a summer, like a camp visit 

This is an interesting plant, which I've propagated before this way and given away.  You just cut the leaf into sections snd shove them into  potting soil. 

I never use rooting hormone though the plant experts always say you should, and considering the reproductive success of my attempts, I think it's not as necessary as they say.

This is also interesting in that it will root only if you plant it the same way up as it grew. Apparently it senses north from south and doesn't like standing on its head.

Last time I made quite short cuttings and this time I'm trying bigger ones to see if it roots any faster. 

And I found yet another rogue potato plant trying to grow among the dracaena, see the fingers there for scale against the miniature spuds 

Then I seized the day

and set up tea and a little something, banana walnut cranberry bread, on the deck, reading Provincial Lady and watching the flock of warblers still here and flitting about the trees.

Amazing to be doing this in November, and lovely. Such a good day. An evening of knitting and then suddenly finding myself dicing a bowl of vegetables for an upcoming batch of flour tortillas. More on that anon.

Meanwhile happy day everyone, seize whatever kind of day you're given, some better than others. 

Vote. Rejoice if the good guys do well, refuse to be crushed if they don't. It's an endless struggle. La lucha!

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.