Happy, dirty hands. And my coffee went cold.

Jersey Girl Trail

A single African Violet arrived a year ago, tucked into a box with several Streptocarpus. Ordered for my birthday from Violet Barn. 

It was potted up in my mix and survived well enough. 

Several leaves got set hoping to grow a few extra. Maybe send some home with Sara for her sills again. 

Insurance. 

Winter seemed never ending and some of the Streps struggled with powdery mildew. Bristol's Ravishing Ruby went to live on the kitchen window sill to keep a closer eye on it. 

A couple plants just withered and were lost.

My mix seemed to be too light. Plants needed watering every other day. So disheartening to find droopy plants everytime I

turned around.  

A new batch of soil mix was made, taking better care to measure. Things were repotted again. 

Turns out some of the babies had been seperated but I put 3 plantlets in several of the pots because they were so small. 

I made quite a mess repotting Jersey Girl Trail babies this morning.

Groot thought so, too.

LED tubes had been tried in the T8 fixture for longer than I could remember when I started with them. Not a fan although I couldn't put into words exactly why.

One warm & one cool tube were bought for two of the fixtures when seed starting time rolled around this March.  A couple of weeks later all six of them got new replacements. Ignoring the "rule" about never replacing lights all at once... 

Things grew. Things bloomed!

My greenhouse is stuffed with plants for the garden, waiting for the weather to warm up enough. One shelf on the light stand still holds four trays of the smallest plants. Mostly because there's just not enough room out there.

Flowers started appearing on my top shelf again. Which change "fixed" things? Maybe hard to say. 

Maybe it was that I had time and a desire to pay attention again.

(Mostly I think it was the lights!)

I'm not going to get carried away collecting too many AVs again. They become a chore. I just want a few old favorites, maybe a new variety or two I've never grown before.

Tomahawk arrives this week from Violet Barn, along with a couple new Streps.

It was my birthday yesterday :)

And then it was May 2023 . . .

Some things don't go as planned.  

Or even as hoped. 

But I guess some things never change... 

All those plants from the pages of this blog are long gone. 

Of course. 

I did say I "would try very hard" not to kill them all. 

But life... and death. 

Stretched me too thin.

Several years of Eldercare when my parents needed me more than I would know.

But it's what you do. 

When they're gone and you have your life back again it takes some time to heal your broken spirit. 

So a year ago I ordered the African Violet Jersey Girl Trail, along with several Streps from Violet Barn. Bristol's Indigo Eyes and Strep Little Kan joined a newly started Texas Hot Chili I've had for years. 

The Original Texas Hot Chili bloomed itself to death, just about literally. I came home one day when life away from my home was the most crazy-awful and asked her if I could please have a few flowers. I cleaned things up by removing spent stalks and funky leaves; watered it well with a bit of fertilizer and left again. Within weeks it was covered with flowers! 

But the crazy-awful part of Eldercare was not finished with me. 

I saved a few shoots, but I finally composted the original plant. 

Through it all, I've always kept at least one shelf on my plant stand lighted.

Sometimes things were sad looking and the reality of trying to fix a sickly looking plant is too much. 

You can always begin again. 

Sometimes that's the hardest part. 

Begin.

Again...

This spring seeds for the greenhouse lit up two more shelves.

My greenhouse is stuffed with plants waiting for warmth to arrive.

My birthday is coming around the sun again in a week. 

Another order has been placed with Violet Barn. 

Tomahawk was an impulse gift to myself, along with a couple new Streps.

I just rewatched Kent Stork's interview with Annie. 

His favorite tool was a trash can. I went looking for one of his plants for my birthday. 

My spirit is mostly healed

I feel relief. Calm. Some guilt. Mostly I can breathe again and enjoy our life.

Home.

P.S. Jersey Girl Trail will get her own post soon.