GREEN THUMB – NOT

GOOD MORNING WORLD

I love the mountains.
I love the rolling hills.
I love the flowers.
I love the daffodils.
I love the fireside.
When all the lights are low.

I found the lyrics to the song to the children’s song “I Love the Mountains” simply for the two lines about flowers.  I am more of an ocean gal though I do love flowers with daffodils being one of my favorites.  I love gardening so long as someone else waters and weeds. I can plan up a storm.  At one of our homes I took part of our back yard and created a lunar garden, a rose garden and had a fence filled with hollyhocks.  Sadly I did not stay there long enough to see the hollyhocks bloom.  The lunar garden was pretty all white in the light of the silvery moon.  Oh my another song reference – I am lyrical this morning as chaos reigns around me.

We are in the process of a couple of moves and one will take the majority of our plants.  I did not realize how many plants I actually had until I lined them all up to see if per chance these gentlemen would transport them.  I know there are no guarantees of life for the greenery though if it can survive me it can survive anything!

I really should not have plants.  I forget to water them and rarely feed them.  Dusting them is unheard of though I vow to be better with each time I do give them any nourishment.  They all know I lie.

Our very first Easter my husband gave me a dish garden.  I still have the mother-in-law tongue and spider plant from that which makes them over 47 years old.  (Spider plant is the one on the left)I treasure them and sadly do not treat them as such. Luckily both are low maintenance.  I should not have plants!  At least I am not a plant killer.  Despite my lack of attention they seem to thrive.

Today they are all being boxed up to go on yet another journey.  They have traveled in many forms and now in boxes which is probably the nicer way for them to go.  We usually just load them up in a car or back of a truck.  I will be anxious to see how their journey ends.  Hopefully I will not have too many lost.  If so then I will just search out friends with similar plants and root them again.

That is the most fun of plants with me – the sharing.  When we leave a place of late we have given shoots from the spider plant to friends.  It is healthy for the plant as it gets pruned and fun for us as we leave a little of us with friends.  That is something I did not even speak about in the care of plants – the pruning.

Just like in life we need to step back and examine our own lives and clear out unnecessary distractions, plants need to be snip of the dead leaves.  On occasion plants need to be repotted for their health.  On occasion, we too need to move on to other interests and even be  transplanted for a job.  In the end this is all healthy for both of us.  I keep telling myself this to justify the lack of attention I give the greenery that so lovingly surrounds me.

As I finish this little exploration into the art, or lack of, the care of houseplants it occurs to me that I may have the strongest plants in the world.  Perhaps they stay strong to keep me strong.  Could it be that despite my attention they are growing as they know I am happier with them around.  Could the plants be looking after me?

That is a real “Little Shop of Horrors” thought yet much more comforting then Audrey II ever was.  My plants feed my soul! I must make a stronger effort in the next incarnation of their lives to take better care of them.  I will try!

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…

PLANTS

GOOD MORNING WORLD

I have a ton of houseplants.  I could have even more and probably have had at one time or another.  I love the sense of warmth they bring to our home.  My houseplants are easy care and tolerant of my watering habits.  I used to say to myself, ‘Water on Wednesday’, thinking the alliteration would help me remember.  Didn’t work.  Then Gidget and Geza entered my life with the gift of a Peace Lily.  They brought it one year as a hostess gift for our Christmas celebration.  It was in a green metal tin that looked like a drum and it had bright green foil around it.

I love Peace Lilies.  We were gifted with a large one in our home inNorth Carolina.  It took up most of the corner in which it sat.  It was beautiful and I loved the flowers.  The name also was a winner for me as peace is something I desire in my home at all times.  I heard and read Maya Angelou speak about words.  It is her belief that bad words hang on your walls just like cobwebs.  She watches who she invites to her home so that peace and harmony will reign there.  Makes sense to me.

I have a ‘Mother in Law Tongue’ plant that has grown to be as tall as I and so wide that we have to put a ribbon around it to make it stand straight.  I hear these plants grow as large as the bad things a mother in law says.  Now that I am a mother in law I wonder if it is so large from what my mother in law said or my husband’s mother in law or me.  I am thinking that anyway you slice it I am in the mix somewhere and need to take the blame!

I have a spider plant that is 43 years old.  It came in a dish garden that my husband gave me our first Easter.  The mother in law tongue did too as well as some philodendrons.  This spider plant has sported babies all over the place and we have left them with friends as we have moved around the country.  Think of it – the legacy of this one plant.  I often wonder if any of the other plants are still living.  No matter this one is.

There are assorted schepholera’s and Swedish ivies and hanging plants here in the house.  One that my sister gave me I have no idea what it is – it grows.  I have rubber plants and spikey things and begonias.  As I type it occurs to me I no longer have a Wandering Jew and do like those purple plants.  I must get one my next excursion out.  I love my Christmas Cactus that blooms at Easter!  I have a northern Pine that I bought for my husband his first day on a new job in 1994.  It is waist high!

Oh back to the watering, which was the whole idea behind this post.  I no longer worry about water Wednesdays.  Gidget and Geza’s Peace Lily tells me every week or so.  It is small and in a pot on a shelf.  I know if I transplant it that it will grow larger and I do not want to do that as I might not be able to see it often.  This shelf is in our kitchen eating area right by the stairs.  It is very visible.  If you are unaware,  a Peace Lily it needs lots of water.   When it is not watered it droops terribly.  When you water it you can stand and watch it’s stalks come back to attention.  It does not die.  Well I suppose it would if you really ignored it.  I do not.  I have to admit that sometimes when I look at my Peace Lily the image of a man wrapping his hands around his neck with his tongue hanging out as a symbol of just how thirsty he is does come to mind. I have made this plant the 5 Star General of my houseplant army.  When the Peace Lily droops everyone gets water and everyone stands at attention.

There it is folks the tip of the day – to know when to water your plants buy a Peace Lily.  Or I could introduce you to Gidget and Geza and bet they would get one for you!!!

…..ONWARD TO MORE MISADVENTURE…(and to water the plants today)