If you have read part 1 of this saga then you know that my elite skills with house plants means that they usually end up dead. Method of death: they would all eventually contract these little pesky flies that eventually overwhelmed and killed the plant. Death by insect, what a way to go.
After a couple of failed attempts at being a responsible plant baron I gave up and bought no more house plants. I didn't want to be responsible for their cruel and untimely deaths. But then, one March for my housewarming party, two friends gave me plants as gifts. One was a leafy thing that was supposed to have yellow leaves year round, and the other was an enigmatic stalk-like plant growing out a giant bean called a lucky bean plant. I was terrified. It was one thing to kill my own botanical experiments, it was another thing entirely for a person to entrust me with the life of another living thing, expecting that I had the capabilities to make it thrive. If I didn't keep the plants alive would that signal the end our friendship?
Terrified of the looming and very real threat of catastrophe, I did my research this time on how to raise house plants. I found out that my previous failures were not because I didn't love my plants enough - rather it was because I loved them too much. I had overwatered them, causing little mites in the soil to multiply out of control ultimately killing the plants. I learned that plants need moments of drought as much as they need water. They need air in the soil as much as they need moisture. I needed to let the dirt dry out between waterings. I resolved to apply my new knowledge with wisdom to ensure the survival of the house plant species.
Since that discovery, I have not killed a plant. I have been worried several times. They keep losing leaves for mysterious reasons. Several of them have turned about as ugly as a potato plant, but the most important thing is they continue to live!!! Only, I still identify myself as a failure as a raiser of house plants. Every time I get a new plant, it immediately loses its flowers, and they never come back. Even the plant that was supposed to have the yellow leaves year round turned green. I can keep plants alive now, but I cannot make them happy. And that has made me sad.
So the reason I have told this incredibly way too long epic tale of plant raising is so that you can sympathize with me, and thus appropriately join me in celebrating exuberantly at this picture!
This is a geranium plant I got at a Mother's day event at my church (even though I am not a mother, I guess being female is enough to qualify me for a geranium plant). True to form, immediately after receiving this plant, it lost all its flowers. Then its leaves started dying. Determined not to be a plant murderer again I learned that geraniums are actually desert plants and prefer receiving even less water than other plants, and that if I want it to flower it again I should locked it in a cool, dry and dark place for a couple of months and just ignore it. How is that for parenting advice?
So that is what I did. I shut it up in a closet and ignored it for almost three months. Then, with trepidation I brought it out and gave it some water. Leaves came! But poor thing, after being starved and ignored, it then suffered physical abuse. Twice wind blew through the window, pitching the plant into the sink, scattering its dirt throughout my kitchen. It lay there in my dish water looking pathetic and destroyed. Resolutely I put the plant back on the window sill, begging it to forgive me for my negligence in ensuring its safety.
The plant forgave me. God bless geraniums: a plant that doesn't mind being horribly abused and still decides to flower!
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