I’m plant stupid! Truly! I have tried my entire life to keep house plants alive and I can’t do it. I am the only person I know who even kills cactus, which are supposedly indestructible.
I can communicate with dogs, small children, teenagers, and executives (there are some similarities between those last 3 by the way), but I cannot communicate with plants. There are really only 3 things to talk about – water, fertilizer and sun. It’s not that hard, but I don’t get it.
Despite my poor history with plants, every spring I get sucked into purchasing lovely hanging baskets which I can typically keep alive and growing until late July or early August. As I was wandering around the garden center this year, I fell in love with a deep red mandevilla and brought her home with me. Much to my surprise, she and I have bonded and she is flourishing.
She sits in front of a brick wall in the bright sun facing west and has grown into a stunning bit of color. My relationship with her is simple; every morning and evening I give her a bit of water, remove her blossoms that are past their prime and tell her she is beautiful.
One day I noticed that her vines were heavy with blossoms and looked as if they might not be able to survive the weight. In my desire to help her, I pulled 4 stakes out of the garage and put them in the container as support. About 2 hours later, I happened to be outside and noticed that one of her vines had already found a stake and had begun to wrap herself around it.
Over the next few days, I noticed more of the vines finding their way to a nearby stake, grabbing on for support and pulling themselves up from a near collapse.
However, there were 2 vines that refused to take the help I offered. I thought they just didn’t know that life could be easier by simply grabbing onto a nearby stake. I would gently pull up the vine, wrap the curly end of the vine around a stake and walk away feeling good about making their load a little lighter. Much to my dismay, I would come back to find they had let go and were once again drooping over with the weight of the world on their vines.
How could I let that plant lesson not show up in a blog post? I couldn’t!
STOP!! WHAT DO YOU LEARN FROM THIS PLANT?
1) We all have a point where our burden is too much to carry by ourselves
2) If we have the right kind of support, we can get to a better place quickly
3) We are stronger and can climb higher if we don’t try to do it all by ourselves
4) There is no limit to our growth if we feel supported
5) Some of us naturally look for someone or something to help lift us
6) Some of us refuse any help offered to us
