When garden dreams begin to drip into reality

I’ve had grand garden dreams for ages (mentioned on this blog over the years), and yet I’ve never made them happen. [Insert a million reasons why here.] I did make a start on it a couple of years ago & even had a celosia go bonkers:

When I moved to where I am now, I was happy to have a bit of outside space (for an apartment, especially). I brought a few plants with me, succulents & a rosemary plant & a few others. The rosemary actually put down roots & grew huge:

And look at the firesticks (one of my succulents) growing up in the middle, lol.

Sadly, the rosemary died a few months ago. :( Boohoo! I have no idea why, as she’d been really large & robust for the past four years. But died she did. My succulents are still soldering on, although they need a lot of TLC.

I’d started thinking several months ago that I’d really like to finally, finally do up my patio & front-of-home with as many plants as I can make fit. I want to fix up the succulents & roots lots of new ones, get lots of new plants, and just generally fill it all to bursting.

And soon after those ideas were blooming (pun intended) in my mind, a garden fairy started to make it happen!

I have a neighbor who loves to garden. He lives in one of the really small studio apartments here, and I get the sense that he’s not had an exactly easy life, but he loves plants and is good with them. The entire front of his place used to be a garden – as in plants-in-the-soil – but then he changed it all up & now has different ones mostly in pots. He’s the kind of gardener who takes cuttings from everywhere, roots them, and bam – has tons of plants.

He started stopping by to chat a while back when he noticed my rosemary & asked if he could come by at times to snip some off for cooking. I said sure; the plant was so huge, there was more than enough. Rosemary for everyone!

He then decided to take some cuttings to try rooting it, and it worked; here’s his cutting that he took from me:

So the big rosemary bush is gone, but its cutting is doing very well at my neighbor’s place, and once it gets large enough, he’s going to do another cutting & root it & give it to me. I’ll be a rosemary grandma, ha!

So then a few weeks ago, he stopped by to bring me a young philodendron:

And soon after, a baby elephant ear:

And a cutting of an herb I’ve yet to identify (which hasn’t been happy with the cold snaps we’ve had, and may not make it):

And then a couple of days ago, he brought me a baby tomato plant:

I’ve got to say that having a gardener for a neighbor is simply the best…especially one who likes to share his plants! Most people here are not gardeners, so I think he’s just happy to find others who enjoy plants like he does.

(And my mother is doubtless watching all of this and chuckling…she was a gardener, almost a master gardener, and always had plants everywhere…she was the kind who rooted everything, too. I know she’s got to be loving seeing me start to finally exhibit some of her garden-ness…or perhaps she’s the one whispering in my neighbor’s ear to bring me plants…ha!)

And to add to all the plants making their way to me, in front of my fence, a little volunteer has popped up:

So it seems my garden dreams are underway! And without any deliberate, specific plans on my part. I just said to the universe, “I’d like to finally have a big garden in 2016…” and the universe seems to be saying, “Ok!”

I can’t wait to see what all this will turn in to. :)