I've been attempting to grow various plants in my house for the past year, and until recently, I had a fair amount of success. My mini rose bush bloomed twice, some mystery plant re-sprouted a purple flower briefly, and a plant my mom gave me when she moved back east has grown like gang-busters. But then something happened, I don't know if I got cocky, or I took on too much plant responsibility, or a hex fell upon the apartment, or what, but everything started to die.
First the rose bush succumbed not once but twice to some weird spiders (though I sprayed and sprayed, they kept coming back), an evergreen bush turned everdead, and the mystery plant lost almost all of its leaves and none grew back. So the other morning, when I noticed a weird spot on my lemon tree, I was really upset.
My lemon tree is my favorite. It occupies the bright sunny corner of the bay window where it's grown vigorously for over a year. And though some micro-pests have tried to attack it, I've fought them back with my sprays every time. With my recent history, the spotting of a weird whitish protrusion on the end made me worried, very worried, and I rushed over to examine it. Lo and behold, it was a baby lemon. Just the tiniest little thing, as you can see, no bigger than my pinkie nail, growing out the end of a branch.
This was last Thursday, as everything around me seemed to be falling apart, as my world for the past two years just sort of crumbled down. Standing in front of the tree, in my bathrobe, staring at the budding little lemon, I realized my lemon tree wasn't dying—my lemon tree had entered a new cycle of its life. And with a smile on my face, I realized, so had I.