Saturday, September 7, 2013

Remember the garden?

Before I tell you about my little garden-that-could I want to confess something. I think I have blog ADD. I have a million posts started and never finished. Perhaps I need to focus more, or drink more, or something. It's just that there's so much happening out there that I don't want to be stuck sitting inside typing something probably only my mother reads with regularity. And it's entirely possible that she fudges at times and tells me she's read it when in fact it's at the bottom of her list of things to do. I'm OK with that.

So, if you recall, I went to a plant sale in the spring and went slightly nuts buying green things that I was pretty certain had a very slim chance of survival but I just couldn't resist. I was doing really well; watering and weeding and pruning all summer. Everything looked lovely, especially my rose. And then, da duh DAAAAH, a month long vacation in Sweden.

Because I'm a heartless woman I just watered the hell out of them and said a quiet goodbye. Because I'm not completely heartless I did think about them several times while I was gone. When we came back I found a cluster of potted dried herbs and a rose bush that trembled and dropped dead leaves and petals every time I walked by it.

I dragged it out to the terrace, leaving a trail of crunchy leaves and brown petals behind us where I decided "what the heck" and started trimming off everything that looked dead. That left me with about five long green stalks with thorns and nothing else. Being a farm kid and life-long plant killer I thought there was an outside chance I hadn't killed it completely. 

AFTER
BEFORE














I cut off everything that looked brown and kept the sticks that looked green. And I watered them every day...I may have hummed and offered words of encouragement like "You don't look nearly as bad as I though you would." And all this attention has paid off.

A few days after amputating all the dead stuff I thought I noticed little green buds forming along the stems, then convinced myself that I was simply so desperate for it to survive that I was imagining things. A few days later my imaginary buds had grown longer, and today they have the tiniest little leaves everywhere.

I feel like a surgeon bringing a patient back from the dead. A surgeon who walked away from the operating table a month ago and suddenly remembered (probably during a golf game) that I had left something undone and rushed back to see if there was any miracle working to be done.

I'm curious now to see if it will actually bloom or if I've killed it enough where it only has the energy to sprout a leaf here and there. Or (and this it totally my guilty conscience talking here) if this experience will only make it stronger and next year the blooms will be even bigger and more beautiful. I'll keep you posted.

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. It already has a million tiny little leaves. I'm sure it will bloom. I feel like the Miracle Worker!

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