Pleasant surprises greeted me today in the garden - and while I'm usually optimistic about my little piece of land and it's ability to nurture a variety of plants - last year I was mad at myself because I had bought a number of interesting packets of seed from Select Seeds and I either (1) didn't get around to planting them, or (2) planted them very late for our warm coastal climate. Two that I planted late were Alcea ficifolia Fig 'Happy Lights' and Nicotiana alata 'Jasmine' - and although at the end of last summer they were looking quite horrible, here they are - green and growing like crazy - is there anything better than gardener's redemption? These are pretty tough plants, so I shouldn't be surprised - but I was worried that my gardening karma would run dry. Now I'm optimistic to have these cheerful hollyhocks around for years to come (they're true perennials), and I'm hoping that the Tobacco Jasmine re-seeds like crazy. I've missed hollyhocks in my garden - when I lived in Michigan in an old farmhouse on one hundred acres of land - the entire backyard was filled with them. They were the old-fashioned single ones - numerous shades of pink all of the way to bright white. I remember mowing around them in the yard each spring - letting them come up where ever they wanted to - I've always been a sucker for re-seeders.
Boy am I glad that I garden, and that I have a garden around me. I spent much of the day researching non-small cell lung adenocarcinoma - at stage IIIB and IV. It's grim. My mother begins chemotherapuetic 'supportive care' tomorrow - that is, chemotherapy aimed at making her more comfortable in the near-term, and not aimed at killing the tumor. I'm slowly accepting this - while the scientist in me feels like I should be able to figure 'this' out - that if I dig deep enough into the literature that I will be greeted with hope. But I didn't find much hope today, and so as I prepare to call her and wish her well tomorrow - I will still try and be grateful that supportive care is available, and that perhaps for this spring and summer season it will keep her horrific cough at bay. She is a gardener too. I will try and be grateful with that, for now. And soon my garden will be filled with blooming hollyhocks by day, and sweet-scented Tobacco Jasmine by night.
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