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Aunt Norie’s Sewing Room

By Staff | Feb 14, 2007

As I sit here watching the birds feeding outside, I’m also enjoying my houseplants. Geraniums bloom on the windowsill.

My thoughts go back to yesteryears. You had no plants for those outdoor spots in the spring if you didn’t bring slips inside for the winter.

You could not purchase blooming plants in the springtime as we do now. Neighbors exchanged starts, cuttings and slips. You planted seeds the first of May, then waited for them to grow and bloom. You planted tomato seeds indoors in February for early spring slicers. Tomato seeds planted outdoors in early May could yield canning tomatoes in late summer and fall.

One could also save those geranium plants if you pulled the whole plant, shook the dirt off the roots, and hung them upside down in the basement or storm cellar. Then when all danger of frost was past, you planted them outdoors, watering them well.

Now we come home with of all sorts of plants to fill those flower beds and containers with a rainbow of instant color — no waiting for seeds to sprout and grow.

Realizing now that I’m enjoying both the old and the new, these starts I clipped and brought in last fall that now are blooming will just be set outdoors in the spring, of course, with many others that I will purchase in full bloom.

Here’s an old Irish Proverb: “Praise the young and they will blossom.”

Help the kids with their homework now.

— Aunt Norie, P.O. Box 265, Tonganoxie KS 66086, auntnorie@bdc.net.