Dirt is my blank canvas

I was refilling the bird baths this morning and had a lovely butterfly keeping me company. She landed on every single milkweed that’s growing around my back porch. Is there such a thing as a fat butterfly? And she was not at all modest about showing her underside as well.

Last week I found some packets of seeds that have been buried in a filing cabinet. I decided that they probably wouldn’t bloom in there, so went ahead and tossed them into some potting soil. Nice thing about Florida is the year-long growing season. I may get nothing. I may be repotting a hundred nasturtiums in a month or two. We shall see. I have a back corner of the lot that I’m letting go wild. Maybe I’ll make a field of nasturtium, delphinium, lupine and let the salvia reseed. Maybe nothing will grow from the seeds. Gardening is an interesting combination of hope and resignation, isn’t it? What is it that makes digging in the dirt so satisfying? In this heat, a lot of my gardening is happening inside my head, making plans for what to put in next.

And finally, a little happy bloom that surprised me recently. She sprung from a piece of stem that’s been in hibernation for at least a year, maybe two. It came from a piece of an orchid that fell off my neighbor’s plant when I lived in Bradenton. I have no idea what her name is. She and my goodwill cat pot seem to be very happy on the corner table.