The Next Generation of Gardening

We're rapidly approaching that time of year again - the return to post secondary institutions.  Eldest who has spent the last four months, working and at home with us, will return to university, six hours away.  I know I won't be quite as big a mess, as I was a year ago, but my heart does start to ache a bit, just anticipating her leaving again.  Why do we let the little buggers get such a grip on our heart strings?

It is too short a time since I was telling her to "get your big bum over", when she would scuttle into the driver's seat as I fed the cows.  To the tiny two year old, this was the biggest game in the world.  Yes I'm aware she should have been buckled up in a car seat, but it was just the old farm truck, and we were just out back in the fields.

She was an early bloomer in the garden.  As I planted gladioli corms in rows, I happened to check behind me and watched her nimble toddler fingers tossing the planted corms aside, as quickly as I could lay them down. How could you scold or reprimand?

I have to say, her green thumb has failed to develop a great deal over the years, not for lack of encouragement, but I guess the gardening gene just isn't dominant in the next generation.

But then last week, she brought home a bunch of spearmint cuttings.  A patron had left it in one the rooms she cleans at the motel. "Can we plant these?"  I must admit, my first thought was, why bother.  But I quickly thought the better.

So I got out my soilless mix, and my rooting hormone.  We carefully recut the slips, dipped them in powder and placed them in the pots, misted and covered with plastic.  Just for good measure, I went out and grabbed a few more fresher cuttings from my herb garden.  After all, success was not optional.

"Daddy I need a blooming plant for my room too."  Of course she wanted some of the magnificent specimens blossoming freely in the garden.  I had to break it to her gently that these would neither move, nor tolerate her little basement apartment gloom.

So off we went to the grocers, to see if we could find a little plant that would bloom and thrive in relative darkness and probable neglect.  African Violets seemed to fit the bill.  There were several fine specimens, but it was the little bedraggled one in the corner that caught young missy's eye.

The pile is starting to grow, as we pack up her belongings for another year.  And there in the midst are her two little potted plants.  I've got my green fingers crossed that they will have a good year, thrive and blossom to their full potential.

And that is about all I have to say for today.

Musings and meanderings from the Musical Gardener.