Success!

While doing my usual walk through in the garden, I casually glanced at my healthiest gardenia shrub and did a sharp double take. A flower! Holy moly, a flower actually bloomed! You might think I'm being dramatic but I've read many posts online from fellow gardenia owners - all lamenting the finicky nature of these delicate plants. These plants are native to China and thus love warm weather and high humidity. Here in San Diego, we've got plenty of warm weather but we're dry as a shriveled prune left out in the sun for days...


Out of the four gardenia shrubs we inherited when we moved in, this is by far the healthiest one. The second has finally perked up after I began watering it enough, although it did suffer fertilizer burn from too much manure compost. Oops. The third, which been dropping leaves steadily since our acquaintance, has finally stopped hemmoraging and I'm hoping it'll recover soon. The fourth is the saddest of all. The previous owner turned off the sprinklers for several weeks before we closed on the house and it was sitting in a super sunny spot. The poor plant dropped all its leaves by the time we moved in. Determined to save it, I transplanted the plant to a shadier area and after some TLC it's finally growing new baby leaves. Anyway, I'm hoping one day they'll all be healthy enough to produce these beautiful flowers. Gardenia blooms are supposed to have the most wonderful scent, so once I got over my disbelief, I quickly got to my knees and stuck my face in for a whiff. Truly heavenly.

Equally exciting is the sprouting of all our vegetable seeds. Before we went to NJ, Badger and I diligently planted zucchini, swiss chard, green onion, radish, and chili pepper seeds in our raised bed. We also planted catnip seeds in a smaller garden bed which has been sitting idle. All week, we've watched the seeds sprout slowly but steadily (yes I've even gone home at lunch just to check on their progress). Nothing can be more satisfying then seeing something spring to life out of nothing. It makes me want to carry a bag of seeds with me, sprinkling them wherever I go. Weird, right? I know.

Mr Zucchini:


Army of radishes:


Unfortunately, the chili pepper and catnip seeds have not germinated yet. Fingers crossed. Also, I'm not sure if this was mentioned already but we added a dahlia plant and two bushy coleus plants to our garden. They're very beautiful additions. Lastly, I was on mission a few days ago to take plant cuttings from a hot pint geranium plant and a mint looking plant with purple flowers in the neighborhood. Scared of looking like a sketchy crazy woman, I made Badger come with me and stand guard while I took plant cuttings. The cuttings are currently sitting in moist potting soil and should hopefully grow roots if all goes well.