A budding note has stopped being a scribble. The claim has a shape. I’ve come back to it at least once, tightened the argument, maybe added an example or two from my own work. There’s still a hand-wavy paragraph somewhere — but the bones are real.
If a seedling is “I just had this thought,” a budding note is “I’ve sat with this thought for a while and it still seems true.”
A few of these eventually stabilise into evergreens. Most won’t — sometimes a budding note is the right resting place.