A Gardeners Nightmare
Some people are blessed with green fingers. Others are blessed with a talent for murdering plants in cold blood, no matter how hard they try to nurture and tend. I fall into the second category, as if you had not already guessed.
You would think that, being a person of some limited capability with regard to gardening, I would live in a place consisting mostly of concrete with the occasional indestructible tree defying all my attempts at slaughter. Instead, I live in a garden which stretches the entire length of my house and is at least four times the width.
My garden contains a specimen of just about every fruit tree that can grow in a Mediterranean climate, and includes some rare examples of cacti and palm. In spite of my efforts to take care of it, it has survived for some years on the natural cycle of care provided by Mother Nature.
I tried to pull down a huge proboscis which was trying to grow out of the middle of one of my cactus, and it turned out to be a rare flower stalk, which appears only every fifteen years or so, and when it dies the plant dies with it. Luckily I did not quite manage to strangle it and the flower grew to be fifteen feet in height, arched over our path, and made a very pretty sight when it began to bloom. The plant did die, though, as expected.
Every spring and summer I spend a fortune on bedding plants, only to plant them in the wrong place where they either have too much sun or not enough of it, or I over water everything and drown it. I spray things with insecticide which are too delicate to withstand the poison and the bugs survive, but the plant dies.
I plant things in pots with other things which should be planted alone, and then one kills off the other. I plant things in pots which are too small or too big, or too shallow, it’s all very confusing.
The worst thing is when one spends a fortune on a magnificent, mature plant to have it wither as soon as it arrives on one’s doorstep. I am sure the plant kingdom works a special semaphore system and instructions to self destruct are passed around the garden centers whenever my trolley appears.
Someone really must write a guide for complete idiots on what plants are the most likely to survive poor care and handling, it would be a best seller.
Jan Gamm writes reflections on life with an emphasis on world travel. She has lived in many countries and traveled extensively in the Far East, the Middle East, America, South America and throughout the South Pacific. She writes for fun and for money whenever she can manage it.
Tags: flowers, garden centers, gardening, plants
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