A Time for Seed Leaves

Gardening teaches many lessons, some might argue it is the best metaphor for any life lesson, and I would not disagree. As a child I was taught many things through our gardens; and when I want to examine my life, I often envision myself as a plant. Sometimes I'm a budding iris, and I think about the swift, magnificent beauty of special times, that though short, are so special that they hold through the months of steady green and dormant rhizome. Other times I see myself as the whole garden, and carefully weed through overgrown thoughts and habits that if left untended, would choke out what good things I should be cultivating- love, patience, kindness, knowledge.

  One lesson that I feel I am constantly being given re-tests on in life is patience, and there is no better place to learn patience than in the garden. My biggest passion in all things plants is the seed starting, and I try to challenge myself with new seed material every year. People ask me what my methods are; and to be honest, there is only one thing I have been consistently successful with, and that is time and attention. I spend hours upon hours babying and re-potting plants, treating sick seedlings, talking (yes, alright and singing) to them, and just spending my time with them. When life becomes busy and all I can offer is a quick water and cursory glance, my plants fade- no matter the fancy lights and mats or soil mix.

Lavender seedlings

In the past few weeks, my little lavender seedlings have all started to develop healthy true leaves. Lavender is a very slow plant through germination and development. This year's seeds took two weeks to germinate, and over a month before true leaves began to develop. Now the seed leaves, or cotyledons - those first leaves to emerge- often look nothing like the true leaves, and once the seedling establishes itself, they often yellow and fall off, their work complete. You see, these leaves are inside the seed- formed before the plant emerges- and their purpose is to provide stored food for the plant- until more leaves develop and the plant can produce it's own food through photosynthesis. I guess I am going through the trouble of spelling this out because I have spent so much time and energy with my little lavender babies, and I began to see a lesson with them for myself.  Sure, I could go buy a fully developed lavender plant for about ten dollars- and it would take quite nicely with little effort or time spent by me. But I don't grow plants for the end product. I don't put in gardens just for the fruit. If I did, and we looked at the harvest versus the inputs, I might be deemed the worst producer ever.

So back to the seed leaves and my fixation on them. I find it interesting that the older I get, the more comfortable I need to become with not knowing or understanding what lies ahead. My seed has broken open- that's often a metaphor for life change- but the next part is equally as important, and if we were to examine a newly germinated plant by it's seed leaves, we might pass it over as insignificant- just two indistinct leaves that as yet can't really tell us much about the plant to come. In life, I feel I am in the seed leaf stage- I am growing- I know I look nothing like where I will one day be- but I am growing and that's all that matters.

This time, this stage, may be temporary and look rather humble compared to where I aim to be, yet it is arguably the most important growing I have to do. If a little tomato of a plant, my true leaves will show quite soon, and all will know that shiny red fruits are on their way. Yet, if I be that little lavender, someday to develop into a strong herb with beautiful flowers and woody fragrant branches and leaves, I may as yet be in my humble seed leaves a bit longer, and feed a bit slower on my seed leaf reserves. And when my true leaves emerge, whatever shape they be, may I have spent the time and attention to growth to produce a strong, well established, defined- leaf, bud, root, and fruit.

My geranium says it's Springtime!

One year lavender in the pot next to two month old seedlings