Spring is here. It is almost as if someone merely flipped a switch. Gone are the cold rainy days. The last couple of days feel like summer, almost as if we skipped spring altogether.
The result of this is exponential growth, everything is either growing, flowering, or pushing out new growth waiting to burst open.
Less than a week ago, I planted some rocket and mustard seeds. Now, they have already bursted through the ground! I presume this is the salad rocket seedlings, as they are always the quickest to sprout. I am still waiting for the mustards to sprout, unless I have it all wrong and that these are the mustard seedlings!
Last week, I also made some cuttings (see the photograph below-left). I am still hoping that they will take, as they look to be in some bad shape. The recent heat is not the best weather to make cuttings. We will see.
But on a more positive not, the cuttings which I made two months ago are growing strong and healthy. In a journal post I made at the start of August, I shared the many cuttings I placed in the flower pots after a storm again destroyed many of my plants. Now, I removed them from the pots and placed the cuttings that made beautiful roots in containers - I want to plant them elsewhere.
It is amazing just how well cuttings grow when you place them directly in the ground. I have been doing this all over the yard with rosemary and lavender, and many other plants. Below are two examples, one of a brand new cutting that has been growing its first new leaves, and a much older plant that has been growing for a couple of years now, but which is growing so well that I will be making many new cuttings from just this one plant!
Elsewhere in the garden, the growth is almost exponential. My wild strawberries (on the right) are flowering, and I hope to harvest some for the first time this year. For a couple of years, I have tried my luck with them, now they are covering a pretty big area, with some of the runners making beautiful flowers.
Above these wild strawberries, my lemon trees are also growing so beautifully. Rarely do I catch them with full blossoms, as these only last a couple of hours or days, with the wind and animals/bugs destroying the petals as soon as they emerge. But I caught this one flower in all of its beauty, her leaves open and intact (below-left).
Next to these beautiful flowers, the lemon tree's new growth is just as mesmerising and beautiful (below-right). We had incredible rains this winter, and I have never seen these trees shoot out so many new stems. It is almost as if the tree is regrowing itself.
By now, I am not sure how many years ago it was, but I stuck some fig tree cuttings into the ground. And now, after I think two or three years, I can confirm that they have properly taken root (below-left).
The fig trees are also already pushing some baby figs (below-middle). We never really pick these, as the birds get to them first. Only in January/February do we manage to get some figs before the birds! The baby figs are accompanied by the most beautiful new fig leaf growth (below-right).
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With all of the new growth, there are so many seedlings from plants across the garden that just arrived all uninvited. One may call these "weeds"! But you can also see the potential in them. One such potential is the September bossie/September bush (Polygala myrtifolia). There are hundreds of small seedlings popping up all over the garden, from the wind blowing its seeds to birds pooping the seeds all over the place (below-right). This plant makes the most beautiful and unique flowers, hundreds of purple flowers per plant attracting everything from birds to bees (below-left). This plant grows so well from seeds and so quickly as well! With all of these seedlings popping through the ground, it is a shame I cannot sell them; nurseries sell these shrubs for a pretty penny...
In the coming days, the growth of these plants will probably slow down, with fewer rains and much more heat, the plants will surely try and survive the change of seasons. This is a wonderful period, but also scary, as uncertainty cries victor - when will there be rain? When will the cold come again?
For now, happy gardening, and keep well!
All of the musings and writings are my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my Nikon D300.