Monday, December 7, 2009

Discoveries/Growing Things

I do not have a green thumb. More often than not, to place a tender young plant under my care is risky business. But I've recently had success with a seedling that I thought a few weeks ago had succumbed to my neglect. It had not taken kindly to the move from its summer home in a shallow flat in a protected southern corner of our garden. I had moved it inside, thinking that it was too fragile to weather over the winter, but it seemed almost too fragile to survive the change.


Nevertheless, I transplanted it to a deep pot with lots of room to set down roots and continued to water it. It kept dropping leaves, until only two were left. I despaired. Once again, my well-meaning but haphazard attention seemed insufficient.

And then, one sunny morning as I sat down at the table in my kitchen bay window where I had placed the plant, I noticed something. Green. Growing. A revival.

The plant now has several sets of leaves, as you can see in the somewhat fuzzy image above. I take great pleasure in its pushing toward the sun, and I am awed by its ability to reemerge from such a sad state. The life force is an extraordinary thing.

Have you ever nurtured a plant, an idea, a dream, that you almost lost but that survived and flourished?


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