It’s a long way before I build a sprawling garden, but hey, it’s a start.
My mother had a green thumb. She had a beautiful garden (three, actually) where she grew a variety of plants, flowers, shrubs, vines—you name it. She was up before anyone else, tending to the lush greenery: watering them, snipping here and there, planting and re-planting. It was a labor of love, and something I wish I inherited.
I’ve been quite unsuccessful with my horticulture practice, though. Every plant I’ve had has withered up or died. “I’m just bad with plants,” I tell myself and others.
The thing is, I don’t want to be bad at it, so I resolved some months ago to change my outlook. When my future mother-in-law gave Stefan and I several pots of pretty purple flowers to adorn our balcony, I took it as the perfect opportunity to shed my past life as a plant murderer and henceforth nurture my green thumb. Stefan and I bought organic soil, I cleaned out the old flower boxes left behind by the previous apartment tenant, and re-arranged the new flowers in nice little beds. They looked perfect!
Until a few weeks ago, when the flowers on one side of one flower box looked dry and unhappy, unlike the other plants that stood tall and lush. Unsure why, I kept watering them anyway, and hoped that the problem would take care of itself. But it didn’t. The weeks passed and I watered them, ignored the problem, and naturally, they got worse and worse. They no longer stood upright but leaned to the left, like they had fainted or even worse, like they were close to dying! “This was bound to happen. Of course, because I don’t have a green thumb,” I said feeling sorry for myself.
But I realized this was the same pattern that I kept repeating. I told myself I have to break the plant-killing cycle and face this horticultural challenge head on. And so over the weekend, I faced my crux: I stood in front of this troublesome convolution of leaves, dried stems and flowers, and quite literally, got to the root of the matter. I untangled the twisted and turned greenery and cut the wilted parts out. When I looked closely, I realized the plant was too tall for the soil that was holding it! No wonder it was falling over; its foundation was insufficient! I then added a fresh layer of soil, enough to make the plant feel rooted again. Seeing that it needed to be propped up still (after all, it had been unsupported and limp for weeks), I took some BBQ sticks from the kitchen and strategically stuck them in the soil. Like crutches, they held up the tired little plant. Today as I look at her (yes, I have decided my plant is a “she,”) she looks happy and hopeful. I may have my mother’s green thumb after all! It will take patience, faith, work, and believing in myself, but hey, isn’t that what growing is all about?