Propagating New Growth

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Edith/Maddie writing from north of Boston, where the days are long, the women are strong, and all the children are above average. Oh, wait …

June is such a time of flourishing, show-offy growth in New England. We have as much light in the sky as we ever do, sliding gracefully into the summer solstice in a few weeks. All the new vegetable seedlings are growing like crazy, as is my garlic crop, planted clove by clove last October.

The lilac blooms are over, but the peonies – goodness, the peonies!

My above-average grandbaby is growing and flourishing like a new seedling, too. She’s chortling and babbling and holding her own books (this girl is growing up in a seriously bookish household), smiling all the way. And napping on her Grammy’s lap.

I also propagated a plant the traditional way. Twenty years ago I “inherited” a Christmas cactus plant from a former resident of a house I lived in. It turned out to be a Mother’s Day cactus, and it hasn’t ever been very healthy. I am apparently incapable of tossing a house plant, and this year I gave it a severe cutting back.

I stuck a few cuttings into some potting medium in a small pot. And, voila! They rooted and flourished and are blooming, only a little late for Mother’s Day.

But how about propagating words, you might fairly ask? Is Maddie deviously devising new ways to kill people?

Right now I’m waiting for a set of editor comments to come back on Scone Cold Dead, the book due July 1.

And wearing my Edith hat, yes, I’m propagating a new short story. I live in a town with historic mill buildings still standing. The river that powered the mills rushes through a narrow space downtown, falling 75 feet over a quarter mile. I was walking home through what we call the Upper Millyard last week and slowed to appreciate the sight of a half dozen artists scattered about facing their easels as they propagated plein air paintings.

Ooh, my author brain said as I kept walking the two blocks home. Suppose…and what if…? “Murder in Plein Air” is what I’m writing now, as I get ready for the release of Murder at the Rusty Anchor on June 25.

Readers: Tell us about your garden, your creative pursuit, or any new thing in your life!

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Published by Edith Maxwell

Agatha Award -winning author Edith Maxwell writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Beyond the Page) and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Dot and Amelia Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries series, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries (all from Kensington Publishing). She lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and cat Martin, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook.

28 Thoughts

  1. Our rhododendron is done blooming, which seems early to me. But the big jasmine bush is perfuming the humid air. Hubby just got our vegetable garden put in, late due to my crazy schedule and his bad back (all better now, thanks). We might have tomatoes by Halloween.

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  2. I have never heard of a Mother’s Day cactus. I had a Christmas cactus in Toronto that grew about 3 feet tall with plenty of blooms and a gnarly almost tree-like main stalk. Alas. no live plants made the move to Ottawa in late December 2013 since they could not survive 2 weeks in an unheated moving truck.

    My 2024 edible balcony garden is a scaled-back version. Since I knew that I would be away for 5 weeks in April-May, I did not bother starting new plants from seed in February-March.
    So, I have 8 planters covering 1/3 of my 35-foot long balcony. Perennial herbs such as chives, bay laurel, rosemary and lavender overwintered successfully. For the first time in years, I bought a bunch of seedlings from the FM in early May: Asian purple & white eggplants, 3 cherry tomato plants, pak choi, Swiss chard, Thai and Genovese basil.

    But I fear my edible balcony garden is in peril. I am chasing off my regular nemesis, SATAN the black squirrel. This year, he has 4-7 kids! My edibles must look like a deluxe buffet to them!

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      1. I tried using netting last year. SATAN still ate ALL my eggplants. I was so irked since I grew the plants from seed in February and got ZERO harvest!!

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  3. My peonies are about to burst, I love those! Lilacs and hydrangeas have passed for the year, lilies of the valley are done too. Purple irises are up, so pretty! And my sweet forget me nots. I’ve planted lots of seed flowers, so I’m hoping I get some surprises this summer. And my dependable hostas are thriving! I do have two Christmas cactuses, both rescues. They really like the cactus plant food. No vegetables for me, I’d rather just buy them lol!

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  4. We had to forego the normal garden this year having decided this was a year to do some major traveling. However, travel or not, we love flowers. We have many that over wintered in the make shift greenhouse in the garage. Many come back up year after year. And of course, who can pass up the new shipment of plants even though we swore we weren’t buying any this year. 🙂 Then to our delight we found that the compost pile of rich soil that we used for filling in and planting new flower beds has produced tomato plants, which are producing already. Just means we have tomato cages up in some non-traditional places.

    We just returned from our first adventure. Seven days and 2108 miles total to MN to photograph black bears in their natural environment. OH MY, what a sheer delight! We had a cabin right on the coastline of Pelican Lake with amazing sunset views from our screened in porch. We had 3 full days of being out among the bears that are totally free – no cages and no fences, and captured some amazing photos. The advantage of long driving time is that I got to read two books during it. 🙂 Now back home, playing catch up and trying to get things back to order before our next trip in July.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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      1. Edith, we are headed up the lower part of Alaska (my almost home state) then making a round about way coming home to see the redwoods in CA and over to Utah to do some of the trip we had to cancel due to Covid. Think this one will test my endurance at our age for longer trips. Got to do it while we can though because we aren’t getting any younger or healthier either. 🙂

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  6. Our lupines are riotous this year. They have taken over the entire front garden space and I have encouraged them. Our rhododendron has buds – this is a major deal as when we re-roofed a few years ago and switched from shingle to metal we didn’t realize the rhody was in the fall zone for snow and ice. We thought we’d lost it, but there is it this year with buds! The peonies are in hard bud and covered with ants. Can the first bloom be far behind? Spent much of the weekend pulling weeds. With rain due on Friday, it won’t last long, but there is something so satisfying about having a clean flower bed.

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    1. Yes, June can be a weed-free moment, since it’s easy to get ahead when they are small! Glad your rhody survived. We had ours pruned last summer, but he did such a good job we still have a nice layer of blooms.

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  7. Each year I say I’m going to cut down on the number of flowers I put in pots since I have five flower gardens with both perennials and annuals. Then, I go to a garden center and can’t resist buying . I love any type of begonia, especially double begonias. Begonias seem to do well for me with the exception of some dragon wing begonias the deer enjoyed munching on last year. Dahlias are another favorite of mine. Then there are ………. I just love flowers and can’t resist buying!

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  10. What a lovely place you live in Edith. We have a really beautiful yard and I used to do all the yardwork myself but old bones and replacement parts don’t always get along well with yardwork. I have a lovely man and his employees who do a wonderful job on my yard doing all the things that I can no longer do. I still do whatever I can and I have a lot of ivy because it is better for the environment than grass. However, it also needs to have a lot of trimming, which I don’t mind doing. Cleaning up afterward is more of a problem, but I can do that, too, with a little patience. I have a lot of bushes in beds, again to avoid having a lot of grass. However, those beds need to be weeded frequently. I have a lot of mulch in there but the weeds still manage to come in and I don’t like to use chemical weed killer so I do a lot of digging. It is good for me and I love being out in the fresh air. I also have a lot of geraniums because they bloom easily for me and I’m great at killing anything that blooms with the possible exception of azalea bushes. They seem to live in spite of me.

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  11. The plants I don’t kill, the squirrel that decided my planters were the best place to bury his nuts (nuts my neighbors give them) kill by digging them up. I’m rather discourages since I enjoyed having flowers in my planters on my balcony.

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    2. The squirrels I feed also love to bury the peanuts in my window boxes. It’s frustrating, but I just keep putting the flowers back in. I love all of it!

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  12. Edith, I’m so impressed with your grove of garlic plants. I cook a lot with garlic, and I have trouble finding bunches that aren’t already starting to sprout in the store. You’ve convinced me I should try growing my own! I will get home to Bern on Thursday, where I hope to find my geraniums, blue salvia, sweet alyssum, and cleome (or spider flowers) thriving on my balcony, as they were when I left. Right now, I’m visiting a friend in the US with gorgeous irises blooming and a large clematis vine.

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    1. Thanks, Kim. Growing garlic isn’t that hard. I always recommend getting Growing Great Garlic by Ron Engeland. It’ll tell you everything you need to know, and then some!

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