About a month ago, Jess bought a white plaster planter shaped like a lion off of eBay, which (in case she’s reading this site) I totally, totally love, despite any earlier comments I may have inadvertently made to the contrary.

Anyway, it became pretty clear that the planter looked naked without a plant, so, also about a month back, we headed down to the Chelsea Garden Center, which actually isn’t in Chelsea, but in a strange shed of a building way, way out in the westernmost reaches of the Garment District. And, while we were there buying a small Dragon’s Blood tree (which, sadly, is far less Harry Potter than the name might imply) it also occurred to me, looking at the bags of potting soil, that I hadn’t repotted my little jade tree in the five or six years I’d been living in New York.

The jade tree came from a clipping of a much larger jade tree in the atrium of my parent’s house in California, which in turn came from a clipping of another much larger jade tree in the atrium of the house of my mother’s graduate advisor at Stanford. And, given its long and illustrious lineage, I figured my jade plant was well worth a bag of potting soil. So, I bought one, and handily replanted the jade.

After which, I was still left with 95% of a very large bag of planting mix. I discovered at about the same time that I had left a clove of garlic on our counter long enough (about this, I am not proud) that it had actually started to sprout. So, I took a couple of plastic containers, filled them with the leftover mix, and planted three of the sprouting cloves.

And, lo and behold, they started to grow. Excited about this – as it brought back happy memories of the farm on my elementary school (which is a whole other blog-able set of stories, actually) – I then headed onto Amazon, and purchased an herb garden planting kit, hoping to round out the blossoming garlics with oregano, basil, rosemary, dill, and anything else that might thrive at windowsill.

And though we still need to find another, hopefully non-lion (not that I don’t love, love, love that lion if you’re still reading Jess!) planter to contain it all, and though it still has a bit more growing to do before the tiny plants would well handle the hop into new plantered soil, my little garden is growing. Bolstered by the jade’s strong example, I don’t doubt it will continue to thrive.

Which, until the spring comes and I can once again wander through Central Park, is as close to pretending I live somewhere far greener and more temperate than this city that I can get.