Green(ish) Thumb
My mother could nurture enormous, lush flora from seemingly dead sticks. Foliage was putty in her gifted hands, shaping themselves into respectable specimens with seemingly little more than water. She would frequently speak kindly to them, a practice which made my siblings and me roll our eyes with a palpable rumble. Perhaps those few loving sentiments were indeed her secret sauce for cultivation prowess.
I would repeatedly try my hand over the years coaxing both indoor and outdoor plants to prosper and bloom with little success. While I never heard Mom swear at hers, a few expletives on more than one occasion would escape my lips out of frustration. It was all for naught; whether loving or disparaging, my words just did not have the same effect on the aloof indifference of those snotty petals from alstroemeria to zucchini. And to think I even tried watering them with fair regularity.
Each warm season offers endless opportunity for gardening success. March seed catalogues seduce me into thinking the results of my labor will yield a bumper crop of floral fantasies or farmers market pride. I have fallen prey to such advertising countless times and have since wised up. I no longer subscribe to such publications — it’s just too stressful.
I covet everyone else’s bountiful produce and floral baskets and wish to follow their lead. The caveat is my ability to stay interested in achieving it. But even with Miracle Grow as a silver bullet, my squirrel brain flits past the effort required for vegetational flamboyance by roughly mid-July — far too early to throw in the trowel. Daily trips outdoors for requisite watering is far too much work. Call it lazy if you must, I call it self-preservation. Unlike the plants in my care, I do not enjoy “wearing” the heavy, humid summer air.
A huge fan of perennials, I prefer to plant something once — usually too late in the season — and rely on Mother Nature to do the rest. This allows me the joy of spending winter fretting over its fate. Even if sparse, the magic of freshly green shoots year after year bolsters my shaky sense of horticultural success. The only annuals I entertain are Type A specimens that quickly erupt into florid color, and the irony of a favorite — impatiens — is not lost on me.
Prized subjects are cared for singlehandedly — with a glass of wine in one hand and the other free to casually deadhead or weed. I choose to believe these interventions account for at least a 50% boost in productivity. One evening a neighbor passed and asked what I was up to. “Gardening,” I chuckled, in between sips as he laughed and said: “Now THAT’S my idea of gardening!” Hubby will occasionally stroll the yard with me, beer in hand, to survey landscaping progress. He is the big picture guy, moving rocks and mulch or mowing with his tractor. I prefer to focus on endless errant minutiae such as weeding or how severely the deer have razed the hostas. And I soon tire of that as summer languishes on, throwing my hands up in surrender.
Inside, unlike Mom, most of my houseplants are succulents. They seem to flourish despite my sketchy care during busy weeks and rarely diss me with shriveled leaves or brown spots. And like cats, they can go days without attention or conversation of any sort. My daughters have also embraced these green maintenance-free shots of life into their otherwise drab dorms. Their hardiness is perfect for those prone to neglectfulness.
I will admit to possessing only four houseplants: a cactus, two succulents, and one prolific palm that has morphed from a four-inch pot into an eighteen-inch round patio container. History suggests caution, so I no longer desire anything requiring the attention needed for a busy toddler. This prunes African violets, orchids, roses, herbs, or produce from the list. I even declared this summer my last for buying outdoor hanging baskets. Their nursery-perfect fullness always gives way to stemmy alopecia and despite all the physical and verbal sweetness I bestow, they never reciprocate. Time to cut my losses in the interest of sanity.
The palm, however — part of a sympathy dish garden when my mother passed — has vigorously (and surprisingly) survived my ineptitude. Living sometimes without water and regular nourishment, it appears to still love me and now divides its time between the patio in summer and the office in winter. Like Mom used to do, I have grudgingly named it and try to talk to it weekly (without cursing), beyond earshot of the rest of the family. The other dish buddies perished but Mr. Palm has carried on like a yeoman. Maybe Mom was indeed onto something. Perhaps she is trying from above to help me have a little green-thumb success. Or maybe, just maybe, I’m finally figuring out how to nurture the woo woo of earth and seed.
