I have a wee Meyer Lemon tree in a pot, and it’s been languishing all winter. It’s been on the botanical equivalent of the fainting couch. It turned yellow, and wan, and there were no flowers this year. It has been a Very Very Sad Lemon Tree.

But in the past few weeks, it’s been rallying. A little Miracle Go (I know, not organic, but easy, available, blue!) and it started to perk up. Then I put it in the back hall with a grow light, and started taking it outside into the greenhouse shed in the afternoons when it gets sunny. I’ve been babying it in a way that goes against my nature. I’m mean to my plants — thrive or die is sort of how I roll (oh God, I am turning into my grandmother as I age).

But a little TLC, and the Meyer Lemon is throwing out tiny shoots. Little green leaves. New sprouts on branches where the leaves turned yellow and fell off.

Hope, like the spring, springs eternal.