Welcome And The Show’s Point

Welcome to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life? That you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulting while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. Today I'm gonna talk about spring. It's one of my favorite times of the year. My favorite sea is it my favorite season? I'm not sure. I've grown to really love fall too, but I love spring because everything starts blooming. And part of me wishes that it could be spring all year long, because I wish everything could bloom all year long. Well, now here's one thing that I don't understand is that my camellias start blooming in January, and that that's clearly not springtime. So I I feel like springtime is sort of an augmented period of time, right? But a lot of my plants bloom in spring. Going to the nursery is absolutely a fantastic experience because it it's just like a botanical garden. We have one nursery uh in nearby Pasadena, which is absolutely gorgeous. It's one of the larger nurseries, and it's it's in more of an affluent area, I shall say. Maybe that has something to do with it, but they always have absolutely stupendous quality plants, and it's hard for me not to just go there and buy everything. I was over there last week for a medical appointment, and I was just gonna come right back home, but I thought I'm gonna treat myself and go to this nursery. It was it was just so beautiful. I I couldn't not buy something, right? So I bought a pack of petunias because they had petunias in almost every color, and I looked for some violas. Now, I I love to watch QVC. I shouldn't watch QVC because I find too many things that I really feel like I need because they have so many helpful products on there. And I'm gonna tell you something is that I don't really go shopping so much for clothing anymore. You know, go out to a store, which is bad because we should support our retail, our retail businesses. Um, but I do find that a lot of the QVC clothing fashions do fit me well. And then if they don't, I could just send them right back and get credit. If I'm looking for something, maybe they'll have it on air. Or maybe I could just search on the app, right? And find something for work or find something for fun. Not that I need more clothes, but well, you always need more clothes, right? Anyway, I was watching QV, I digress. So I was watching QVC, and recently they've had plants for sale, which I'm not sure I would ever buy plants. Uh I mean, I've done it before where I've bought plants either online or through the mail or whatever, and they've arrived, and it's and it's less than a satisfactory experience to buy plants that way. But I was watching the presentation of these plants, and I was thinking, why don't I have any violas? And I was looking at them, and I always, you know, okay, how old am I? How long have I been a gardener? But I was looking at them and I was thinking, aren't those just pansies? They're not. So I, you know, you can't know everything in this life, right? So I uh sought out and I looked for at the nursery violas, and so I got two packs of the uh two six packs of the violas. So the other day when I had some time, and I was actually off, I wasn't working, I planted some of the petunias and some of the violas. And so my hanging baskets look really nice now. I have to do hanging baskets, by the way, because otherwise the squirrels will come and eat everything. And I don't begrudge them a meal, but I don't want to be feeding them my plants. They can go find other things to eat. There's there's two oak trees, they can eat the don't they eat acorns? Don't they want to eat acorns? No, they want to eat my tender plants that I buy. Uh they have given up on eating my sweet pea plants. Uh, I don't I I believe I told you when I first got the sweet peas, I planted them in these pots where I always plant them. And I went out there like the next day, and they were all just down to the ground. There were no plants left. And I saw the little jerks with the little tails, and they were running back and forth. So, yes, they were eating the sweet peas. Now, I don't know if they taste like peas. I mean, they're flowers, they're they're ornamental flower plants, but anyway, uh so I went back and I bought more, and then I put some some bird netting over them so I can still see them. Um, it's a very light netting, but it um distracted them enough so that they're not eating the plants, and most of them have come back now. They're still not blooming, still waiting for the blooming. But anyway, garden challenges. So I I got that. So, but everything is blooming so nicely. Some of my later camellias now are blooming. The ones uh that started in January have finished, and the new growth is starting. And then so the camellias kind of go, they bloom in waves, in uh, you know, sections, right? So some of the later camellias are blooming now, or they're starting to bloom. There's a couple new ones that I got last year that are really spectacular flowers. They're absolutely gorgeous, but I think they were kind of damaged by the rain. And there, some of their blooms were not as nice looking as they should have been because they the blooms opened up and then they got shattered by the rain that we had. And then I've had another camellia. This is a a plant that's probably at least as old as I am, and it's it's big, it's a little uh leggy now, it's a little straggly because it's been in the shade for you know eons. It's taller than I am, and since we've lived here, it's produced multiple buds, and it would get to the point where the buds were just about to open, and then the buds would systematically fall off. And it was very disappointing, and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong or what was happening to it. I, you know, tried watering it, I tried not watering it, I looked for pests, I checked multiple gardening sites, I've talked to the guy at Nucchios, which is uh, you know, all they all they've done is sell and propagate camellias and azaleas. And he said, you know, sometimes it just happens. Um I was like, so if he doesn't know, there's no way I'm gonna know. Uh but I was out there the other day and some of the buds have actually opened. I'm not gonna say they're spectacular uh blooms, because they're not. They look like they're it looks like there's still something wrong with them. Like they're smaller than they used to be, like they've been stunted, there's something right, but they've opened. So we're gonna take that as a win. I think um most of the plants, most of the camellias have they've tried their best this year. We did have a lot of rain, and I think some of that just hurt the the plants for whatever reason. Plus, the oak trees um have dropped a lot of uh oak tree debris, and um they have this white sap that they drop. I think it's from the tree. I don't think it's the birds. White stuff all over the place, and these now it's these little um stringy, puffy tan things. I guess they're like seed pods, or I don't know what they are, but they all come from it. It's a very prolific tree, anyway. So it's a mess out there. I'm constantly cleaning, and on top of that, some of the weeds just with the rain just took off. And the um the weeds, I would say they're at least 18 inches tall in some places. Now, I have my weed trimmer, my weed whacker deal that I've um taken to most of the area, but my creeping Charlie has gone crazy. And so what I'm trying to do is take the cuttings from that creeping Charlie that's mixed into the weeds, and I'm trying to use the extra pots that I have to um grow new plants. I found that there's a place where people are leaving plants and cuttings for uh neighboring Altadena, and it's called Regrow Altadena, and so people who suffered loss because of the fires, uh the Eden fire in Altadina can go there and get plants for free to take back to their yards and their gardens, and so I thought this is a perfect thing for Tracy to do, right? Um, because I have a lot of cuttings from my succulents. Um, some of them the branches just fall right off. And I mean, how many succulents can you have, right? I guess you can have a lot, but there's a limit. Um, so there's a lot of pieces that have just fallen off. I've stuck those in extra pots that I have. I got some potting soil, some cactus potting soil, and I'm I'm just growing some extra plants. And when they're when they're all kind of ready, I'm gonna take them over to this spot in Altadena. So I've been taking the creeping Charlie, which is now it's now the size of oh my gosh, it's it's huge. And it's it's tied in with these weeds, and it really is a beautiful, I mean, yes, it's it can take over, but it also grows prolifically, and it can be green and it can be nice in a yard, so or a garden. So I thought, well, I'll take advantage of this. So I'm slowly taking the pieces out uh and and growing them and also giving them to friends. So I feel like that's my little part of what I can do to help Altadina rebound, because when you drive through that area, a lot of the plants um they're just it's it's gone. There's some trees, sure, but a lot of a lot of the plants or the bushes or the flowers that you would normally see in a neighborhood in people's yards, it's not there. There's just blank lots. And sure, with the rains come weeds, but everything was burned away. So that's what I can do. That's something I can do. So I love springtime, I enjoy the flowers. Uh my allergies do not appreciate the pollen, but that's another story. But um, and I also have a Chris a couple Christmas Amaryllis uh bulbs, plants, whatever. Uh I'm looking at one right now that's bloomed in the last week that's absolutely gorgeous. I don't understand why it blooms uh for Easter, it's a Christmas amaryllis, but it's gorgeous, and I'm gonna take it. So I hope that uh for you gardeners out there, I hope your garden is as enjoyable to you as mine is to me. And I just want to say that if you guys hear any weird noises in the back in the background, it's because the neighbors who are building their house uh or building up their house next door have been in full, full-on work mode. We had kind of a break there where they were doing some of the electrical wiring and it was it was kind of quiet. It was very, very nice. Uh but they've been putting in the ductwork, and the last several days, they've been working, even on the weekend, they've been working on uh covering the roof with the whatever roofing paper, it looks like roof sheeting, uh, in anticipation of putting on the actual roof. It's very noisy. So there's not much I can do about that unless I wanted to record in the evening, but it can't do that. Didn't didn't get enough time to do that. Can't filter out all the noise and distortion. We do the best we can. So that's what I have for today. Next week, we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries Podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on. And consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page, Only Child Diaries, or Facebook, Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace, and these are the Only Child Diaries.