If you follow me on
Instagram, you may have seen the pretty flowers I planted a few months ago.
You may have also noticed
the all-too-accurate #foreshadowing. My black thumb does, indeed, kill anything
it touches. Believe it or not, these are the same plants. But seriously.
The main problem is that I
simply don’t understand plants. They can’t communicate, and this is a huge
issue for me. I mean, how am I supposed to know what you want, plant? Yeah, you
might droop a little, but is that because I'm not giving you enough water? Or because I’m giving you too much water? Or because you're too hot? Or not getting enough sun? Or, maybe, I'm not talking to you enough? How am I
supposed to know?! So, when these guys started looking sadder and sadder… I
just gave up... and thus, the dead plants.
In the backyard, we had
somewhat of the opposite problem. Due to my complete lack of attention or
maintenance, the plants (well, one in particular) grew a little out of control.
Can you tell which one? Thought so.
This plant seemed to be
eating all of the rest of the plants one by one, so I decided to take action.
John and I went to Home Depot to find something a little tamer to replace the
behemoth. To my great dismay, Home Depot did not have a section of plants
called “black thumb proof.” I nearly turned around and went home.
What I learned (and please
withhold judgment, because I know this is most likely common knowledge that my
plant-unfriendly has just never absorbed) is that while plants are not
categorized based on their tolerance for their owner’s stupidity/incompetence/inability,
they are categorized based on how long they’ll live (provided I don’t get the
chance to kill them first). We decided to get some drought-tolerant (read: Claire never has to water) perennials (read: Claire never has to re-plant).
Tip: don't garden at 1 o'clock in the afternoon in mid-August in Texas. Rookie mistake.
After two hours of blood (not really), sweat (really), and tears (almost), I had pulled out the old, and replaced with the new.
Things feel 100% less claustrophobic now. For some before and afters...
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You can kind of tell that in the last "before" picture, the succulents were super long and over grown, so I tried to break them into smaller pieces and re-plant them. Luckily succulents are pretty resilient, so I'm fairly confident they'll survive. I also used those same succulents to fill up the pots for the entryway. They may not look like much now... but hopefully they'll grow to be a little more interesting. I may also add other succulents to them for some variety.
I think we have a much more long-term solution here. My hope is that these plants will need a lot less mothering... because plant-mother I am not. There are still some spots in the back yard that are a little overgrown looking that I might tame down the road... but that's going to have to wait till it gets down into the double digits.
So what do you think? Want to make bets on how long these plants will survive? Don't worry, you won't hurt my feelings.
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