Pretty picture: Aeschynanthus speciosus flower

Nothing huge here, just a nice, pretty little orange flower. This particular Aeschynanthus has been at work for as long as I have, albeit in somewhat different form (it had originally been much larger and coplanted with a pair of Dieffenbachias). Last winter, we separated the plants and took a huge number of cuttings of this plant, which took forever to root and grow but eventually were turned into about forty or fifty new four-inch plants, and a half-dozen larger hanging baskets. They all still betray their nonstandard origins in certain ways -- being lopsided, for example -- but they're filling in nicely, and the flowers really are pretty in person, especially in large number.

Though it's not actually the case that we have large numbers of flowers. Not yet. Since these are fairly young plants still, we may not get them this year either. But it's nice to see the few blooms we've gotten so far. It has that warm glow of nostalgia that takes me back to . . . a year ago.

Which, in fairness, seems much longer ago than a mere year. Last spring alone was at least eighteen months long, and nothing you say is going to convince me otherwise.