Quite Encouraged (in a small way)

This early Sunday morning, my tiny seedlings glow a vibrant green under the fluorescent grow lights a few feet from where I sit writing these words. The cosmos seedlings are the already stars of the lot. One day, they will bear a profusion old-fashioned flowers on lacy greenery easily soaring five or six feet above the garden bed. They now stand a lordly three inches tall. Already I’m concerned that they may outgrow my improvised greenhouse before the weather is warm enough to transplant them into the garden.

The pansies that will one day be profusion of fragrant purple blossoms, are now just four tiny leaves. Invisible stems holding these tender green engines just a millimeter above the damp soil of their plastic four-packs. I’ve never grown them from seed and I wonder how they will find their way from here to there.

I’m most excited about my lavender seedlings. (Munson – an English variety) I dream of a patch of lavender at the top of the waterfall in the Temple garden. It’s lush and full of light blue blossoms and smells heavenly. Right now however, my lavender patch is in two four-inch pots, each containing nine or ten thread-like stalks a quarter inch tall. On top of each spindly stalk are two tiny leaves, a little larger than pinheads. Not a very promising start, but between my amazement that these minuscule seeds of black grit actually sprouted and my fertile imagination, I’m quite encouraged.