"Hope Does Spring Eternal"

  "Hope springs eternal".  This is a partial quote from Alexander Pope in his poem "Essay on Man".  It is usually applied when one thinks that a situation is doomed but a small sliver of hope still gleams in the wings. That is how I saw it today.  "Hope springs eternal".  For years just outside the front door, two old black gum trees stood seemingly forever.  It is hard to kill these trees and even when one does die,  it is equally hard to take it down.  Hurricanes try their best to knock over the trees but to no avail.  Hurricane Katrina, with her fierce winds and extreme storm surge, could not fell one such tree that had been long gone due to flying squirrels chewing a colony of tunnels through the trunk.  The tree stood solid against all odds.  Now, twelve years later, the two trees near the door have met their demise due to the very same hurricane.  Old injuries from storm tossed debris were welcoming doors to wood boring beetles and now termites.  My two sentries that guarded the front door cease to live.  It saddened me as the trees provided shade from the harsh summer sun and blocked much wind from storms coming off the Bay.  

  This afternoon as I stood giving my last goodbyes to two steadfast friends, I noticed that hope does spring eternal.  A large section of one tree had rotted from the center outward.  The outer bark had been ruthlessly torn during Katrina tossing a deck (from across the Bay) into the tree.  The gash was a good four feet in length and probably a foot wide.  Trees were the least of our worries after the storm as we cleared the (ten feet deep) debris from around the house and made repairs.  It was far more important to rid the place of potentially disease carrying debris than worrying about the health of a tree. Eventually, the borers moved in and gutted the tree.  But...from death comes life.  Today, I found that the very same wound that killed the tree brought forth a new life.  

  Where the core of the tree had sifted down into the shell of bark, a arrowhead philodendron had taken root.  A nearby hanging plant had sent a tendril reaching out until it found the soft mulch inside the hollow tree.  The new shoot took root and now stands as a completely separate plant.  The new tendrils dangle gracefully from the gaping wound of the old tree.  The tree, itself, had become a "pot" for the new plant. Hope and life springs eternal when given a chance to take root.  There is always an answer if we only look for it.

Getting to the root of the problem!

A couple of months ago, Mark was doing some work on the siding of the house.  This work required him to be standing right where a couple of my plants had decided to grow.  "They" had decided to grow there..this was not where I planted them!  Anyway, with his tromping about, the plants needed to be moved.  Not wanting to spend a lot of time being in his way, I just snipped off a couple of branches of the Pothos vine that had taken root and was doing so well right where Mark needed to stand.  These branches were stuck in an old Mason jar and put on the window ledge. I had good intentions of potting them once I found the opportunity.  They looked so pretty in the window!  The heart-shaped leaves were so glossy!  My Pothos cuttings never showed any signs of trauma at being cut from the parent plant.  Yep..good intentions and all that..I promptly forgot my cuttings.

This morning, I took my cup of coffee to the living room.  Here, there is a small table near the windows where I can look out over the gardens.  In the gardens, I can view the lovely zinnias with their fresh morning faces.  I can watch the birds fly in to visit the feeders and, also, see the squirrels and rabbits scurry about the hillside.  It is one of my favorite places to have coffee.  This is also the very same window where the Pothos resides in its canning jar.  This morning, I noticed that the jar seemed quite full.  Oh, my goodness!  Has it really been that long since I snipped those leaves?  The Mason jar was filled with roots! I really must get busy plant that thing!

As a point of interest..Pothos is sort of a Philodendron twin.  It is one of those plants that most folks mistakenly call by a different name.  There are so many similarities between the two that this is a common mistake and one that I admit to making quite often.  Years ago, an elderly friend of mine told me the secret method of telling the difference.  It all falls down to the shape of the stem from leaf to main stalk.  If this stem is grooved, then it is a Pothos..if it is smooth, it is a Philodendron.  There are other differences such as the glossiness of the new leaves and if there is a "sheath" around the new leaves.  Glossy, unsheathed new leaves shows it is a Pothos.  Sheathed, matte new leaves mean the plant is a Philodendron!  It is as easy as that!  Mine has grooved stems, unsheathed and glossy new leaves so I can be sure that this is a Pothos according to Miss Dot's method!  Now to get that Pothos potted is a priority!  I will hang it from the arbor just outside of this very same window.  How pretty will that be to look at while drinking my morning coffee?