Focusing on little things for big reasons.
Lemon tree. This is a Meyer lemon tree. No, I'm not kidding. I have several of these going right now but this is the only one that is above soil enough to take a picture of. Here's something I just learned, the Meyer lemon, is a hybrid citrus fruit native to China. It is a cross between a citron and a mandarin/pomelo hybrid. A short while ago, when I decided to buy some lemons and try to grow a lemon tree, I discovered that it takes around four years for a Meyer lemon tree, grown from seed, to bear fruit. Which is fine really. I'm not at all anxious to deal with fallen fruit. I'd much rather grow a tree. When I was a kid I spent a rather inordinate amount of time raking up bee ridden fallen rotting fruit when I should have been out playing. At the time I was modestly terrified of bees. I'm quite fond of bees nowadays. You can read more about my relationship with bees and see a bunch of bee photos here.
In a recent post I mentioned separating some plumbago bushes from some bougainvillea bushes running along my backyard fence. That project still isn't finished. I stopped because I thought I had destroyed two bougainvillea plants and I wasn't at all happy about it. Well, it turns out that both of these bushes are coming back in just fine. Plus I took some cuttings from other bougainvillea bushes and so far they're not dead. The cuttings have been tented in containers covered in plastic bags for just over a month now. This one is a soft cutting and I'm not too sure if those are going to make it but there are also several woody cuts. I've discovered something when it comes to plant "experts" online. For every person you can find who says one thing about whatever, you'll find another person who says exactly the opposite.
New growth on one of the the chopped up bougainvilleas.
Anyway, back to yesterday and today and more little things...
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| Waning Chrysanthemums |
These are agapanthus seedlings. I was bringing in my garbage cans post collection several weeks ago, looked over at the very expired flower stalks on a few agapanthus plants and the dried flowers were transparent in the sun. I could see the seeds. I didn't know one could propagate agapanthus from seeds, that's not how the plants got there but I figured, someone will tell me I can and someone else will tell me I can't so, WTF, I collected a bunch of seeds. There was a danger of frost for a few days so they ended up coming inside and were put under a CFL. They already look like agapanthus plants to me. Oh, and speaking of weather, it was 91ยบ today. It's the middle of frickin November.
Back outside and back to plumbago plants. There are very few flowers left.
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| Butterfly bush |
I also spent two sessions today with bougainvillea flowers on the largest plant that hasn't been cut back yet. These are the true flowers which are surrounded by colorful sepal-like bracts.
That's all for now. Any time is always a good time to look for little things that make life happy.
Life is made up not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindness and small obligations given habitually, are what preserve the heart and secure comfort. ~William Davy~
