Friday, February 18, 2011

Psycho-killer: Plant style

I have no green thumb.  I raise plants much like my mother did.  That is to say, I kill them.  Doesn't matter what plants they are, they quickly succumb to my evil and die out of self defence.

When we first moved into our home, people brought us houseplants as a gift.  They were lovely.  They had flowers and were in a pretty bucket thing and looked very nice.  Within weeks, they had lost their flowers and did nothing but look like green sticks coming from dirt.

I had plant-pro Janny come in and help me repot them and she assured me I could do this.  She was so positive, I convinced myself I could even get two more plants!  I believe she called them idiot proof.  I got a Wandering Jew and another hangy one (a philodendron) that even a monkey should be able to keep alive.

The monkeys (or Monkies) are mocking me, folks.

So far, the Wandering Jew is doing fine.  The Philodendron?  Not so much.  What started as a lush and colourful plant has withered into a straggly, pathetic shell of the plant it once was.  It has given up on life and just sits in the corner praying that God will take it home.

The succulents have met similar fates.  The small one upstairs is still hanging on, but the big one downstairs has died.  It is still sitting on the dresser where I left it in the sun and then promptly forgot to ever water it again.  It's sitting there like a symbol of my inability.  An homage to my murdering ways.  A knife to the failing thing that was my confidence.

I am tempted to send my philodendron to Janny for a visit.  Like an out of control teen, she can take it, fix it and then return it to me when it's ready to do what I ask of it.  Like: GROW YOU MISERABLE SOB.

5 comments:

  1. Oh dear, poor plants. After today I'm on reading week break so let me know if you need me to stop by and take a look!

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  2. I kill some of her plants, too.

    Janny's Mom

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  3. You truly are your mother's daughter.

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  4. I have a black thumb, too. My husband is the only reason that we have anything living in our yard. In college, my mother bought me a little hibiscus for my dorm room. When I would water it, and keep it on the window sill, it would shrivel and fall over, dropping leaves. I would get annoyed, shove it into the darkest corner of my closet & forget it. A week or two later, when I would pull it out, it would be green & perky, sporting a huge bloom. My Japanese roommate thought that this was HILARIOUS!

    Ugh.

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Crap monkies say "what?"