I grew up with plants in my house. My mom always had a variety ranging from African violets to hanging spider plants. One of my chores as a kid was watering the plants, so apparently at one point in my life I knew what to do. Somewhere along the road I lost this skill completely.
Shortly after I married my husband, I became interested in plants again, focusing mostly on my rose garden and flower beds in the summer. We even had a vegetable garden for several years that flourished. Sometimes I bought house plants but could never remember to water them, or over watered them when I finally remembered. I became known as a plant killer, but I would like to think those plants took their own lives, even if it was just to get away from me.
It wasn’t until my daughter was a toddler that I finally became responsible enough to start caring for other living things in the house outside of the humans I cared for daily. I started buying more plants at that time and found that shamrock plants were very forgiving. They literally cannot be killed. I had several instances where my shamrocks were knocked over and the dirt and roots were thrown back into the pot and they came right back to life. At one point I had both purple and green shamrock plants, and I threw all of their roots into one pot and crossbred them into plants with green centers and purple outlines on the leaves.
Today I have a variety of plants all over my house, mostly spiky things that look scary or punk rock. The cats chew on some of my palms, but most of the others are thriving. I have peace lilies and cactuses, succulents and a bonsai tree. But what I am most proud of is my orchid, which was gifted to me by a counseling client. It died shortly after I received it due to it being handed off in the middle of a snow storm. I read what to do and was informed that the plant itself was not dead, just the flowers. I tended to the roots and the stalks. It has been over a year, but flowers are once again blooming. I guess Orchids are just as forgiving as shamrocks.
I have been watering my plants myself every weekend, but I think it’s time to put this task on my daughter’s chore list. She loves plants, and it will be a good way to give her a little more responsibility. Maybe she will be the next plant killer in the family, but she will also learn that just like family, plants are also pretty forgiving.
**I wrote this post while listening to some pretty epic girl punk rock – VIAL**
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