Something old and something new

I guess it's no surprize that I love gardening. I really miss it, and have already decided where my garden will go next year, as well as the placement of the "living" fence, so we can have some privacy from putz naked ninja neighbor. I've been contenting myself with playing with my indoor garden,my plants.

In the old place, a garden was out of the question, when you live on the backside of a state park, there is simply no way to keep the critters out of a garden. And so I contented myself with growing flowers on my porch. The two flowers I return to time and time again are geraniums and petunias. The geraniums because they remind me of my Mom and Grandma, and the petunias for their vivid colors, graceful growing habits, and distinct scent.

Both of these plants are annuals....they die at the first hard frost.....but not before giving a LOT of seeds out into their environments. These plants shared a porch with my houseplants, I would let them summer outside. So, it's not unheard of for some geranium or petunia seed to make it's way into a houseplant, and come spring, I'd have aliens growing in the houseplant pots.

I guess with the stress of moving, I wasn't paying attention, at the time where I should have removed the "aliens" from the indoor pots, so that the plants weren't competing for nutrients and water. So, something old.....the petunia seeds. Something new, the petunia plants, growing in a [lemon or grapefruit, I can't remember which, just stuck a seed in a pot a few years ago for haha's and would up with this tree] citrus tree pot.

This is a pic of the tree, with the petunias at it's base:

Although a petunia is a annual, I don't know how long it will live inside, under houseplant conditions, and this might mean trouble for the citrus.To yank or not to yank? Do I leave the petunia in it's splendor, or rip it out by the roots? Why I'm ruminating over that, what do I see?

Last week, Boo brought her spider plant over. It had to be divided, it was as pot bound as they come.So we made 2 plants out of it. Boo couldn't take the plants home right away, so I volunteered to babysit them for her. She'd ask me this week every time we spoke, how her plants were doing, and I said, oh they're planning a take over with the maranta and the Thanksgiving cactus. Little did I know.
You've all seen spider plants, they throw out aerials, which produce babies complete with roots, and lil white flowers. Well, it appears that Boos spider plants want to get down with my plants. In both these pics, it is BOO's 2 spiders, not mine,hehehe, getting happy with a maranta as well as an immature palm plant.

The maranta and the spidie:

And the spidie makin luuuuuv to the palm:

I LOVE that! And what is funnier to me, is that the spider, palm and marantas in question all have similar water light and nutrient needs, so if I were to allow this, they might look very good together [I nixed allowing it to live with the maranta, the maranta grows so low to the soil the spider would die underneath it.] Can you see, a dark green upright palm with spider plants swirled all around at it's base? I'll report back when they get jiggy with it ;o)

This week marks the loss of Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/arts/music/17travers.html?_r=3&hp

I can't tell you how deeply that affected me. I have mentioned that I grew up in a patriarchal family of 8, where the sons were the important ones. It seemed like Every single thing I wanted was a struggle, because a girl didn't do that. Play the violin? Are you CRAZY? Switch to cello OMG, now I KNOW you're crazy.

Ah, though, to see Mary. And to think, if *I* had a hammer, no kidding that song was an anthem for me. As is most of their body of work. Of all of [their body of work] all the social implications it had, for all they did to raise social consciousness, my single favorite work is "Leaving on a Jet Plane". I went to YouTube to post it here for you, but I can't give it to you. I have the original, on every music playing device that I own. Simply because it is beautiful. The vocal harmonies are front and center, over the guitars and string base, and the song speaks of such longing, I can really relate to it. It was simply lovely. Not a societal commentary, not a peace commentary, it just stood on it's own. IMHO, it was a unique song performed by a unique group at a time in my life where I remember where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard it. It froze me in my tracks. I mentioned this specific work in a discussion about Peter Paul and Mary shortly after Mary died, and I was poo-pooed, oh, that was one of their songs that had no SOCIALLY RELEVANT MEANING. Who gives a fuck? I dont. I don't like hearing that a group has to stay pigeon-holed into anyones' definition of them. I don't believe that because a piece doesn't have SOCIAL RELEVANCE that it should not be part of a discssion about a groups body of work [I'm sorry, the poster spoke with such bombastic self-assurance I chose to bow out of the discussion. 3 coats of epoxy, opinion set now, no talking about it] Not every thing out of every SOCIALLY RELEVANT artists mouth has to drip with activism, or peace-seeking. Sometimes, they can just speak from the heart. Thanks, Mary, I appreciated you. Still do, and always will.