Hello, I'm Bud

Hee! There's a bunch of poppies with mini-buds on them. I wonder if they'll bloom in miniature before I plant them?


My bay "tree" has new growth! It's been pretty touch-and-go. It started off with scale insects (I got a discount on it because of them). I treated the scale insects with neem oil, which cost *way* more than my discount! The insects finally seemed defeated... and then the plant dropped nearly all it's leaves. Thankfully, it also started budding out new leaves. However, it was just one batch of leaves, that slowly hardened into mature growth. For the longest time, there was no more growth. Today I checked, though, and *yay*! New growth! There's a shoot coming up from the top, and another shoot that must have come off a bud-site below ground on the cutting (it appears to have been propagated as a cutting, not seed growth), because it's popped out of the dirt about a centimetre to the left of the "trunk". Hopefully I have a happy bay now. :)

Speaking of poppies, I got to go painting last night, and worked on my poppy painting. Here's two photos, one over-exposed, and one under-exposed:

I'm including both, because it's easier to see the details in the light area in one, and the details in the dark area in the other. (In person, I can see both details just fine.) I'm not done yet, but I'm certainly getting closer. :)