When" Zara" tacked a note on the mailroom bulletin board asking if anyone would be willing to babysit her plants for the summer, I sent her an email saying I would do it.  In no time, a young Sri Lankan woman appeared at our door surrounded by green leaves.  She was going to visit her parents for two months and she was thrilled that I was willing to take care of her plants while she was away.  She left quickly to finish packing.

I introduced our own plants to our guests, and I treated our guests as if they were our own.   I even re-potted one of them.

When Zara returned at the beginning of September and came to pick them up, she was thrilled at how they had thrived. I could only think about how hard it was for me to give them back.  So I asked her if I could take a cutting from a couple of them and see if I could get them to root.

Pictured above is my first success.  It’s in the only piece of pottery that I ever made (circa 1972).  I check it for new leaves every morning. The other plant cutting took a bit longer to root, but it will be ready to pot soon.

Plants and flowers (and flowering plants) give me great pleasure now-a-days.  And that’s good.