Relentless Inquiry

I took time I didn't really have today and finally put my rescued gladiolas in dirt in a pot. They'd been sitting in a bucket in a couple of inches of water. And now I'm taking time I don't really have to post about it. So it goes.

I came home one day from work to find that folks were dismantling the mobile home around the corner, as they were selling the lot to put a new home on. I'd noticed all the dying gladiola plants and thought about saving them, but had always noticed on the way TO work, rather than FROM work, as I usually come in the back way.

Seeing construction debris tossed over and around them was a powerful motivator– I went home, grabbed my trowel, gloves, and a bucket, and went back there. The dirt was so hard that it BENT my trowel(!!) but I got all of them out of there.

I came home with 5 glads whose bulbs were about the size of elephant garlic, and with dozens of little 'babies' hanging off them, another 3 or 4 which were ping-pong ball sized, and some juvies which were about walnut-sized. They are all happily in my old square planter, soaking up the sun and water and non-rock-hard dirt (fresh OSH potting soil). I took the little peanut and filbert sized handful of loose protobulbs across the street to my gardening neighbor, who had earlier rung the bell to offer me some dusty miller she was digging up. She adopted them happily. Yay, plant rescue.