It’s a growth thang

It’s been an exciting week. Monday night, the frangipani blossoms first opened, and I almost pitched myself over the parapet trying to photograph them. When the leaves first stirred I remarked that they were early and how wonderful it would be if the flowers were early too, so The Squeeze could experience them. Six weeks later I noted that the single growing shoot had split into four -- bushiness! yay! -- but still no flower buds. And then, in the heat of summer, I noticed that one of the new shoots had flower buds, and they opened, and the summer had been and gone and so The Squeeze has now experienced them. I think she liked that.

The “tree” looks a bit silly, and it may be too much to hope that next year each shoot has flowers.

Then there’s the wisteria.

I planted about ten seedlings last winter, and mostly they germinated. Potted them on, secure in the knowledge that this was a total waste of time, because any fule kno that Wisteria takes forever to bloom, and I'd be long gone e'er they flowered. When The Squeeze casually pointed out flower buds on one of those tendrilly buggers, not knowing that of course there shouldn't have been any, not for another five years at least, I was stunned. But there they were, and a couple of days later, they bloomed. Not bad for a seedling. I'm eager to see whether any of the others are early developers too.

The hibiscus? Not much to say about that. Bought by The Squeeze just before her departure, I managed not to kill it over the summer and it is still going strong.

And finally, little baby Zampifolia.

This is testimony to the don’t-be-too-hasty-to-throw-empty-pots-away philosophy. A friend gave me a monstrous Zampifolia before her departure a couple of years ago, and it did OK for me, growing ever more monstrous and sprawling all over the place. I split it (an event not considered worth blogging) and so had two sprawling monsters. Last summer they went out on the terrace, but as winter drew on the thought of bringing them in filled me with horror. So I left them out there in the cold and wet, and by the time I realized they were rotting away it was too late. I brought them in, tried to dry them out, but to no avail. I removed slimy stems from time to time until nothing but an ichor-encrusted mess remained. Later this spring, I finally had to get them out of my room and out of the house. But as I tipped the mess out into an empty compost bag, I noticed that not everything had degenerated. There were a couple of nubbins that seemed sound. Well, what the heck, into a little pot one of them went, and under a drip, and I forgot about it. Till it put up a shoot. Then another. Now a third.

It will definitely be coming inside at the first hint of cold and wet. How long before it is a monster sprawling around the house again?¹