Something from nothing

Back in April I spent a Sunday afternoon re-potting some houseplants that were long overdue for new homes and dirt.  I am so happy to be writing with good news.  All of the plants are happy and well, and it is still calming to me to know that they have recently been re-potted and the ever present to-do task is done for a while.

First, the most impressive before and after plant.  

Before:

                               

And after:

I'd say this one is thriving in it's new home.  And since I'm spending so much time at work lately, I guess it's nice to have it there with me.









But the most exciting progress is with the plant that I named the "5-foot-tall palm-looking-thing," because I still have no idea what the real name is. This is the plant that I couldn't bear to part with even though it clearly was not doing well.  I followed my husband's advice to lop off the top and put it in water and see if we could get the top to grow roots or the trunk to grow sprouts.  The top sat in a vase of water for at least six weeks. It wasn't droopy, but it wasn't growing, either.  Then the trunk got moldy under the plastic bag and nothing else happened and I had pretty much given up on both.  We got back from our summer vacation to Virginia in mid-June to find that the top in the vase had finally sprouted a single, white dot of a root.  Now there is a whole web of roots in the water and I think it is finally ready to have a home in a pot of dirt.

The trunk is even more amazing.  After a few weeks we basically stopped watering it, because the trunk was clearly not going to grow anything.  Probably the only source of water it had was the occasional glass of water being poured in by my three-year-old for fun.  About two weeks ago my husband very excitedly told me that something had sprouted near the trunk.  I have no earthly idea how this thing sprouted new growth from below the dirt with virtually no water, but it did.

The trunk on "lopping day"

And the amazing little sproutlet today:

 I thought I was going to end up losing one plant, and now we've managed to make two.  Never count out the underdog!

Maybe next year

This was supposed to be it.  Right now.  Over the past few years, every time I uttered the words "Well, I guess we can't right now, but next summer we should (fill in the blank here)," I was talking about this summer.  Three summers ago I was pregnant.  Two summers ago I had a wobbly, nap-taking, one-year-old. Last summer I had a determined, quicker-than-lightning, two-year-old.  But this summer, this summer, I have a child old enough to safely join in most activities and I am so very experienced at being a Mom that it should be easy to schedule life in order to accommodate anything.
.....Is there a font for sarcasm?  I guess not.  You'll have to improvise.

The air in my house is thick with laters, not yets, and soons that are looking for a place to land.  My son doesn't take very kindly to hearing those words, and I really can't blame him because I don't either. The current focus of my impatience is our garden.  I was so looking forward to the flowers we were going to plant, the landscaping we were going to complete, and endless summer nights of relaxing on our newly-painted deck enjoying the view.

At least the deck is painted.

I don't consider our yard anything out of the ordinary when it comes to the amount of work required to maintain it.  It takes quite a bit of time and effort throughout the spring and summer, but for anyone with a suburban yard who doesn't employ landscapers, that seems normal to me.  And I enjoy doing it.  But the time just isn't there right now.  Every year we research, measure, sketch, plan, and we end up weeding, pruning, watering, and wishing.

I suppose I should be grateful this year, as we sit in the middle of one very long Midwest drought.  Just keeping the few perennials watered enough to stay green is a nightly task that would take much, much longer  if we had planted everything we had wanted.  But seeing all of the empty, dry beds of dirt every night does not give me peace.  I recognize it is more frustrating because it is a symptom of my larger issue with scheduling, but that perspective doesn't put color in my yard.

However, we did manage to try one new thing this year that isn't dead yet.  Back in March we placed an order for a native plant kit from Conserve Lake County, an organization that works towards land and water preservation and conservation in our area.  The kit arrived just after we came home from our June vacation, thanks to some customer service and a purposely delayed shipment, and we were able to plant it right away.






When it comes to planning a garden, it doesn't get much easier than how they set it up for us.  It came like this.....

.....with a little map like this.....











....and once we got them all in the ground, we had ourselves a little area of life that had a plan and purpose:

They look a little tiny and sad in these photos, but a few weeks later, the plants are taller and thicker and generating new sprouts, so we may well be on our way to something successful.  I will wait a while before posting updated pictures; right now there is not much more to show.  In theory, there should eventually be flowers and butterflies, which will make for much more exciting images.

I'm pretty sure these are all going to come back next year, as long as they grow and get established right now.  So next year will definitely be the year that our yard is going to look great.

It's no wonder I am a Cub fan.

Adventures in houseplantery

I really do like plants.  I like to garden, I like to have houseplants, I like how they look when I take the time to tend them.  I'm guessing you can see where this is going, so, not surprisingly, I don't always have the time to tend the plants as I would like.  Luckily for me, the houseplants in my home have been with me since I lived in my own apartment, and they are quite used to not seeing me for long stretches of time.  Every year one of the items on my to-do list is "Re-pot plants," and that item just never seems to get crossed off.  Until this weekend!

Most of these houseplants are still with me, and I feel compelled to keep in good, oh who am I kidding, alive condition, because of how I acquired them.  People very generously sent many plants and flowers when one of my Grandmas passed away about 10 years ago, and I ended up taking home a basket that had a beautiful little arrangement of tiny green houseplants.  I'll be honest here, I can't be completely certain that each of the plants I now own came from that basket, but since perception is reality, in my mind they all did.  So it just doesn't seem ok to give up on any of the plants, even if they never get watered enough, grow in crazy directions to get to the sun, or grow to over 5 feet tall.  I don't even know what some of them are, though I've tried to look up pictures on the internet, and quickly forgotten what I found.

I bought some pots on clearance from the floral section of the grocery store shortly after Valentine's Day, and this weekend I finally got around to using them.  First, I pruned and re-potted a poinsettia.  This one is not from the basket collection,  it is from a few Christmases ago, but it seems nice enough to keep around still. (I realize now that "before" pictures would have been helpful here, but you get to just enjoy the finished products.  Maybe it's better that way.)

Next I split an African Violet that had grown into two completely separate plants without my involvement.  I guess a lot of years left to fend for yourself necessitates growing a friend.  That friend now gets a pot all its own.  Maybe I should keep them next to each other so nobody gets lonely....

After that, I pruned one of the plants I cannot name, one of those viney things where you can grow totally new plants just from putting a leaf in water.  I trimmed off the long tendrils and planted a few pieces into a new pot to take to work.  I have had a spot selected for this plant in my cubicle for about a year now.  Probably should dust off the shelf before I set it down.
This particular plant has been shared with many people, and that's my favorite part about keeping this one going.  My Grandmother used to always have a row of little glasses on the windowsill growing new African Violets from little leaves that she would give to shut-ins from her church.  I'm using a different plant for my sharing, but the concept is still the same, and I think that is cool.








Finally, the beast.  The 5-foot-tall palm-tree-looking thing that may or not be a dracaena, based on my internet searching.  It has been way too big and not impressive looking for years, and I finally faced the truth that this thing had to go.  I solicited some ideas from Facebook friends, but in the end my husband recommended lopping off the top to try and grow new roots and start over, which I agreed would be as good a shot as any.  I also saw some gardening advice on the internet where they said you might be able to grow new sprouts from the top of the "trunk," so I'm hoping one of the two work.  To the right, the top.  Below, the trunk, with a little baggie tent with spritzed water to keep the top moist.

I feel SO much better having done this little project, I've been looking at these sad plants for far too long.  I am anxious to see what happens with the tall plant that basically had its middle removed.  Though based on how long it lived in a pot that was too small and alternating between drought and flood conditions, it's certainly much stronger than I think.