What's Growing: February 2025
guac for life, plus: the potted plant I couldn't kill if I tried (and, I tried)
I’m not sure if it’s midlife, or the fact that I’ve moved back to natural landscapes of my childhood, but I notice trees and plants far more than I used to. Each month here on Home Again I share a photo roundup of what’s growing around my home, neighborhood, and city. Glad you’re here!
February is my favorite month, which I understand is an unpopular opinion. Where I live we get rain (which I love) and also plenty of California sunshine (which is hard not to love). If you’re awaiting spring growth and not seeing much evidence of it yet in your neck of the woods, I’m happy to share some of my natural surroundings with you today. And also to remind you that growth is happening under all that ice and snow.
Here’s what’s growing around my home and neighborhood in February. I’d love to hear what’s growing where you love - hit reply or leave a comment below!
1. Guacamole
It’s time to start picking avocados! This year will be a bountiful harvest, whereas last year was slim. So far it seems to be an every-other-year situation. We have three large, mature Haas avocado trees total, all next to each other and sort of overlapping in their canopy. The fruit does not ripen on the trees; though it continues to grow in size and develop in flavor, the exterior does not start to soften and turn from green to black until it either falls due to gravity/wind, or gets picked.
It’s become something of a personal challenge for me to be always in supply of a ripe or nearly ripe avocado on my counter, but never in a scramble to use a whole bunch before they go bad. The sweet spot seems to be picking 2-3 avos every 2-3 days, so I just make that part of my routine.
I also love giving them away to friends and family; I’ve even shipped an avocado care package across the country! (The newly picked ones take at least a week to ripen on the counter, so they actually handle transport quite well.)
2. Winter-Blooming Acacia
Once again, putting together these posts forces me to look up the names of plants I’ve been noticing for years but didn’t have a name for. These Acacia trees (sometimes they’re shaped into hedges, too) are originally from Australia and sport the fluffiest lemon-yellow blooms in late winter. We have them along our driveway in hedge form and I spot them all around town as both hedges and trees.
3. Rosemary Flower Butter, Anyone?
We have rosemary growing everywhere in the backyard - super convenient anytime a recipe calls for it. I’ve always wondered whether it was still edible once it bloomed, and it turns out it is!
The purple blossoms - which are on full display right now - can be used on salads, in herbal teas (pssst,
!), and to make rosemary flower butter, apparently!
4. (The Last Of The) Carrot Soup
Bryan pulled up the very last of the carrots planted last spring and made a gorgeous soup with it. I told him it tasted like baby food, in the absolute best possible way.
The soup is garnished with roasted chickpeas in za’atar seasoning, which we attempted to buy by driving to the listed address for this shop we found via Google. Despite the deceptively professional web presence, we found the brick-and-mortar shop address to be … a gas station. The employee working there that day told us his boss did, in fact, sometimes sell mediterranean spices out of the back of the convenience store. He rummaged around and offered to sell my husband an unmarked ziplock bag full of dried herbs, which Bryan politely declined. With no locally-sourced za’atar to be found, he improvised the chickpea seasoning and narrowly avoided having to explain to inquiring minds why he bought dried leaves in a baggie from a gas station.
5. Wee Someday Lemons
I never get tired of seeing edible fruit in its most infant form. Look at these mere suggestions of lemons! Possibilities of future fruit! The very cutest.
These aspiring lemons are from a very young tree we planted about three years ago. It does make me so appreciate mature citrus trees, because it takes a WHILE to get there. At best we’ll get a handful of lemons from this guy next year.
6. New Growth / Old Growth
When I’m walking I like to notice new growth on the kind of greenery which, around these parts, exists year round. Bright yellow shoots asserting themselves from a succulent bed; delicate blossoms on a hardy sage; new baby greens atop last year’s babies now grown; relentless English ivy having its way with a steadfast agave.
7. Nevertheless, She Persisted
This feels like the stuff of a future essay, but in brief I will share with you that I put what was left of this potted monstera plant in the garage after an unfortunate pruning incident in late 2023. I have watered her zero times in fifteen months. Her only source of sunlight is one sad, cobwebby southeast facing window in a dark garage.
And still, new leaves. And still, slow and timid growth.
(Update: I pruned and am propagating this plant as of this writing. Her garage growth will see better light soon.)
More in the What’s Growing series:
So so so lucky to have all those avocados! When I was at UCSB our department manager lived on a huge avocado farm in the hills in Carpinteria. I visited once and will never forget it--it was incredible. Sadly, they won't really grow up here.
I loved reading this, Sarah! And the pictures are beautiful. The tiny lemons are so cute, and I love the heart shaped leaf growing upwards on the monstera plant!