There was an old woman who lived in a shoe...

Well, I'm not quite an old woman and I don't live in a shoe and I don't

have too many children that I don't know what to do but...

I do have a fern that keeps reproducing wee baby ferns ALL the time.

I've given so many away and have composted more than I care to admit.

I've written about this fern before so if you live somewhere where I can get them

to you or it's legal to mail them, let me know and I'll be glad to share the wealth.

So here I go again...saving these little offspring...reinventing things to do with them.

This is the Mother of all ferns.

Her common name is actually Mother Fern...

I got her about 5 years ago as one of 'those' babies.

A tiny little 2" scrawny orphan in a pot.

I was told to give her lots of water.

I did.

She grew very slowly for almost a year and then....bam!

All of a sudden she got bigger and bigger...kind of like a child does.

Now she has fronds about 3 feet in length and is the proud momma 

of a kazillion green miniatures of herself...

They grow on the ends of the fronds and you just gently pull them off to start new ones.

The other day I found a nice old mason jar.

A mason jar old enough that modern lids don't fit.

I love that it has the big word 'CANADA' embossed on the glass...

I don't think they make them anywhere near Canada anymore.

It also has the words 'Improved Gem' embossed above Canada...

I guess it was better than the even older ones.

So I picked up some pebbles from the beach, combined with some other

bits of beach glass and beach crockery bits...

Filled it with some filtered water and anchored the little ferns amongst the pebbles...

...in time they'll root, I'll give some more away and dream up more ways to reinvent

this plant...kind of like sour dough don't you think?

Around the house...

Sitting here at the table and I'm intoxicated by the fragrance of these...

 I bought them last week and within a few days of  being inside

with the warmth of the wood stove and some sunshine...

 ...they are all three stems, heavily laden with spring perfume...

 ...filling the house with promise and the optimism of warmer days to come...

My little oxalis which I received last St Patricks Day has laid dormant

for most of the winter. But in the past few weeks she has been

sprouting new leaves almost daily...

 ...as if she's just bursting with spring joy!

I received something most interesting in the mail for my birthday a few weeks back...

 My daughter had these shipped from this shop. They hand make these beautiful arrows

with real feathers and poplar wood from sustainable sources...

 Sweet little gift tag as well!

 They're only for decorative use so don't imagine me out there in 

the forest looking for deer...maybe I'll use a few on Valentines Day!

 Do you like marbles? 

 I inherited a bunch of odds and ends from another crafter who was getting

rid of some felting supplies and these were in amongst them...

 We used to have huge marble collections when I was a girl and I remember

in the spring the school yard was full of all types of games to challenge your marble skills.

Many kids carried them around in those purple Crown Royal cloth bags that the 

whiskey came in. Of course the big boulder types and the clear crystal ones were the real prize ones...

...I always wondered about the coloured bits in the middle and how it was 

that the twisty design was made. I'm sure with technology these days I could 

google it and find out but for now I'll just enjoy them as is on my table reflecting the light.

 

Many, tiny babies...

Last year I did a post about houseplants...in particular this lovely fern I have

whose common name is 'Mother of millions' or 'Mother Fern'.

She is so graceful with delicate, long, green arms hanging down,

sometimes brushing your head with the tips of her leaves as you lounge on the sofa...

And now she's gone and done it again...making many tiny babies on the

ends of her fronds and me, trying to find places for them

all to live...

I fill a pretty glass bowl with stones from the beach...

some good potting soil on top of that...

and gently poke about six of the little ones into the moist world that they love so much...

But what to do with the many others?

For now they will go into a dish of water until I find little homes for them.

I do believe I need a conservatory...yes that's it, a fern room of ones own!



On plants...

I don't keep as many house plants as I used to.

Mostly because of space and the intensity of light here.

I know, most people wish they had more sunlight, but here our windows face south

and the windows are very large, so the sunlight can almost be too much.

In the colder months, we can, on sunny days, claim to have 'passive solar heating'.

All this means is that the heat of the sun coming through the windows, is enough to warm the house sufficiently.

So the few plants I do have must be kept out of this blistering light and since our space is limited, so are the amount of plants I grow indoors.

I have my 3 little cacti, which sit on the windowsill...

This one has needles that look suspiciously like a tiny house spider I've seen in the bathroom.

I have a few orchids, which I've learned, like neglect and just a tiny bit of water once a week...

Then there are the sometimes prickly and healing aloes, which seem to love the heat of the loft...

The ferns that I keep out of the direct sun seem to do really well here.

And I love ferns...

I have three strange ones.

One is dormant and not very photogenic right now.

The second is called a rabbits foot fern...for obvious reasons...

These are external roots that creep outside of the pot.

Some people think it looks like giant, furry spider legs.

It really is a lovely fern.

The third is called a Mother fern.

She is growing in a small pot set into a giant pot which holds my palm...and loves lots of moisture...

The lacy, fronds grow up to a meter long and the really interesting thing about this fern is how it reproduces...

Babies are growing right out of the bigger leaves...hence the name Mother fern...

So I have taken a bunch of these babies off of the mother plant and will try growing them in one of these little peat pot greenhouses...

Who knows...maybe I will go into the fern growing business if these little guys do well!