When I posted about the amaryllis that I forgot about in the basement that bloomed its little head off anyway, someone pointed out that it’s rather ironic that we try so hard to make some plants grow and then others just go ahead and do it even when we mistreat them.Never was that more true than in the case of the dogwood in my window box.Before I go any further, you know that I’l all about keeping it (mostly) real, right? Well this post is going to highlight two rather embarrassing situations at my house: dirty windows and inappropriate seasonal decorations.Anyway, I’ll just get the confessions over with. Yes, as of last week (the situation has since been dealt with) I still had my winter decorations in the window box. I just stuff a bunch of red twig dogwood sticks and pine boughs in my containers for winter as a free and cheery decoration. (By the way, they are decidedly LESS cheery come May.) Anyway, a few weeks ago I noticed something interesting as I looked out the kitchen window (which the window box is mounted under.) There were buds on the dogwood! 
Here’s the view out the kitchen window since November. 
If you look closely you can see the swelling buds on the red twig dogwood branches.
And here’s a close-up (of the leaves, not the aforementioned dirty windows, which, by the way, I should get a pass on because we’re still dealing with the mess from construction. Or something like that). These are dogwood twigs that I cut myself and stuck in the dirt left in the window box in November. They were never watered or treated humanely. And sure enough, I looked again and those buds were opening up into leaves. This didn’t happen with any of the dogwood twigs I had stuck in other, less protected containers.When I pulled them out of the dirt there were no visible roots on the twigs, but I’m sure they would develop if given the opportunity.Plants never cease to amaze me. We spend so much time coddling them and sometimes they don’t need us at all.
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I noticed leaves opening on an old Annabelle hydrangea after I pulled the shrub out of the ground to discard it. (And I just took down my wreath by the front door. Since I use a blue green ribbon and a spray of yellow wood pears on it, it is less Christmassy but still it's a winter wreath!)
wow! that is really amazing!
I have a hanging basket that had a dead houseplant in it. It sat outside during winter and when guests came over they would go outside to smoke and stuck their butts into this container. Gross.
However, several random seedlings, clearly different, have volunteered their way up through the sludge!