Do you have a green thumb? Do you think that plants take more time than they are worth? What do you like to grow?

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Answers

I like the idea of growing things, and I often make a good start at it -- it's the part where they're supposed to keep growing that I have issues with. Like last year, I started my own tomato seedlings from the seeds, got them big enough to transplant outside, then planted them outside. Then I forgot about them for a week, didn't water them or anything (and this was during a drought).

When I finally got around to looking for them, I couldn't even find the place where I planted them. They'd shriveled out of existence.

The closest I've come to success is my "herb garden". I put that in parenthesis because it isn't really organized or anything; just lemon balm, catnip, mint, and orange mint chocking the life out of the hyacinths that are never going to live the life they deserve. I think the plants are starting to become some weird hybrid of all of the above, because some of the mint's started tasting sort of snarky.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I pretty much live to grow things, and I grow more or less anything. (I kill houseplants and I've killed many a fern, though, so tell your mom not to be so hard on herself.)

I haven't tried that cat grass, though. I suspect it's not actual catnip, which is a mint and lives forever and will take over an entire yard in about three months. I tried to grow that in the house once for the cats, and they kept knocking the pot over and rolling it under the armoire, so I had to move it outside. That's why I haven't tried growing the grassy stuff.

As for actual catnip (there's also a related plant called "catmint" which is prettier, but my cats have no interest in it and I keep killing it), I have bales of dried catnip in my basement, and I don't intend to grow anymore in the foreseeable future. I probably will, though, because it reseeded all over the place. Once I took it out of a pot and put it in the ground, it got to be four feet high and six feet wide in about two months.

Catnip is evil.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Well, let's see, I have an African violet that's gasping it's last (I swear I can hear it moaning). There's that vine-y thing that's supposed to be extremely hearty that's getting all brown. The mother- in-law's tongues (I swear, that's what they're called) are looking good, though. I've been told they will survive total thermonuclear war, like cockroaches. I have a "just add water and wait" pot of habanero peppers on my kitchen windowsill that has started to sprout. I'm hoping against hope that I'll get at least one pepper out of it (squeeze eyes shut, cross fingers).

I have a brown thumb. It's genetic and incurable, but I keep trying.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I love to grow all things vegetable! For the last 14 years I have lived in an apartment and have had dubious success with my outdoor container garden (the containers are small and require water 3 times a day in July and August). My indoor plants did much better when I worked part time nights and was in school all day, but I couldn't imagine a house without plants.

Next summer we move to a house. I can't wait to put a garden into the actual Earth for once.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I would LOVE to have a house full of houseplants, but since we have five (yes, five) cats, I can only put plants where the cats can't reach. Once, I mistakenly left a brand new baby spider plant on the counter when I left for work, and by the time I got home there was nothing in the pot except for one lonely little spike waving sadly at me.

We plant stuff outside, though - last year I grew Daffodils, lilies, and a huge pot of catnip. It's cool watching stuff you planted grow.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I try, I really do. I have a strange plants/cats situation. I tried to grow the catnip grass thingy (I'm so pathetic that I bought it already grown) and my cats were terrified of it. They hopped around it with the bushy tail and walked sideways. They touched it with the paw and jumped skyhigh even though it didn't move. I ended up throwing it in the garbage while grumbling and mumbling "ingrates". On the other hand they LOVE to eat houseplants, dried flowers, and even this wretched smelling sea heather that I hung on the wall HIGH UP and they reach on their tippy toes and nibble on the edges. They are so completely confused in life. I blame myself for this. So you see, I can't grow anything at all.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Die Fledermaus. Animated .gif much?

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

My father always had a garden, both flowers and vegetables. The soil in our backyard was enriched every year with compost, etc. (and I'm talking about back in the 1940's and 1950's) until it was so fertile I swear you just had to hold a seed near that rich earth and it would sprout and grow.

I always wanted to have gardens but this was difficult for an apartment dweller. When I did have apartments with a balcony or second floor porch I did container gardening... and for many years I was hooked on growing various indoor plants. (I once had a grapefruit tree -- grown from a seed -- that got to be more than seven feet tall.)

Actually buying a house and having a backyard was wonderful. I began to grow all kinds of veggies and flowers, planted blueberry bushes, etc. When we began to raise children I had to cut back on my gardening due to lack of time, but our kids and their friends loved to eat berries right from the bushes and I would always be able to get something from the garden during the summer, even if it was just parsley or chives or something simple like that.

Our lot here in Rhode Island is more than three times the size of our former lot and since the kids are now teenagers I have been able to do more gardening. Since my wife switched from being a database architect to being a middle school math teacher (thus having summer off) she has discovered the joys of gardening. She tends to get involved with landscaping, planting and tending roses, various flowering bushes, groundcover, etc., while I am more interested in raising things that are good to eat, although we both do some work with everything. Many delicous fresh salads came from our garden last summer.

Seed catalogs are now arriving... it's time to start planning this year's garden. Spring is coming!

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I have a little row of plants at my front door. Some of them do okay, others have died, mostly because I was neglectful and didn't bring them in the one night we had a freeze.

There's one weird plant that used to be a real plant, but now I think I'm growing weeds. The old plant died, and now there's these big green sprouts. I think perhaps they killed my old one.

But I can't keep plants indoors -- my cat will eat them. I used to have a lovely, big tropical looking palm thing and Cosa ripped it to shreds. I moved it outside, but it was too late. Not even George Clooney could have saved it...

Die Fledermaus: AGGH!! MY RETINAS!!!! Ahhh... thank god for clouds.. :)

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

It wasn't until a few years ago that I discovered I had a bit of a green fingered thing - up until then it had been family lore that only my aunt was "good with plants" (in a reverent tone). Then I bought this two-leafed plant at the church jumble sale. I loved it, watered it, fed it and turned its little pot in the sun. And it remained resolutely two-leafed. For a whole year until, one day - another leaf! and then another! It flourished...

My sister hated it (we shared) and dubbed it 'the alien' and i still don't know what it's called, so 'the alien' it remains. The happy ending is that it's now a massive mother and I have more roundstalkyleafy plants than you can shake a stick at.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I kill every plant I get near, but that doesn't stop me from trying. This morning my two year old and I spent a couple of hours planting seeds in our little windowsill greenhouse. I don't know if anything will come of it, but it was fun digging in the dirt.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Oh man. I've never told anyone about this. But when I was nine I read an article about a scientific experiment done that showed when people talked to and/or played music for their houseplants, they grew better in limited conditions. I had a little garden pack from a Wendy's kid's meal that had aster seeds in it, and planted it on my window sill. They were my pets, I was terribly in love with them. I talked to them constantly, and was thrilled when they sprouted a full four days before they were supposed to. For two or three weeks I kept them up there until one day my mother walked in and said "Brianna, if I see dirt on your bookshelf one more time from those plants, I'm throwing them away."

Well, I knew I couldn't keep dirt from getting on the bookshelf. I'd been trying my best not to be messy, but it's hard when you're nine. So I picked them up and threw them away myself. And cried over it for a week. My mother felt terrible (it wasn't her fault, I just wasn't smart enought to realise that she was only trying to get me to keep my room clean, she wouldn't actually throw away the plant) about it and took me to Wendy's to get another plant. But it just wasn't the same.

So the point of that rather embarassing little story is that I still talk to my plants. I can't help it, it really does make them grow better, and I figure as long as no one catches me doing it, then there's no harm done. Which is why I just posted a message about it online. :)

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

My dad gave me some little cacti in a pot of rocks. They are the kind that live close to the ground and look like big green buttons. It's Central Texas, so no, it isn't peyote.

I water them once a week. They continue to live just fine. I bring them in when it freezes. They've been alive for well over a year. They don't grow because they match the size of the pot.

My girlfriend brought a "plumeria" back from Hawaii. It is a tropical plant so I had my doubts as to whether it could tolerate the temperate climate here. She gave it plenty of water and sunshine and it grew one little leaf. Then it became infested with fruit flies which proceeded to swarm all over our house. How do you avoid that? I made her put it outside, the fruit flies seem to have halted its growth, the leaf fell off, and then it froze.

I think I'll stick with the succulents.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Look. See that? My Black Thumb.

A friend's roomate went to India for 3 months, and my friend volunteered to look after this indoor tree of hers. Now this tree, it was very special, and my friend was nervous, because the tree was 27 years old, and had been planted by the roomate's parents the day she was born to be her "life tree". yes, I know...ugh.

So, my friend was really nervous, and I suggested that she go get another plant to keep the tree company, kind of as a joke, but sure enough, we went to Safeway and got it a philodendron for company.

9 weeks later, the tree was dead. Dead. The philodendron had some kind of plant fungi, and the tree caught it and died.

Do you know how hard it is to tell someone you killed their tree of life?

But I love gardening. My antique roses don't bloom, and my vines all get woody, but I still do it. I must have a herbivorean streak of cruelty in me.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I rescue houseplants like other people rescue animals. I can't go to Target or Home Depot or Franks or any store that sells houseplants without finding the smallest, driest, rattiest little sad plant and taking it home to try and save it. I get all sad when I see those poor little babies rootbound and scraggly and I have to adopt them....

Please, if anyone needs/wants a pothos (incredibly hardy and impossible to kill) or philodendron, let me know. I have thousands.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I continue to try to grow vegetables. When something you planted grows and you can actually eat it....well, all typed out it sounds like cannibalism, but trust me it's great.

Unfortunately I'm terrible with plants, and incredibly impatient as well. I won't take the time to properly turn the soil, or work in mulch, or whatever you're supposed to do. I'm also not real good with proper light and watering. So every little tomato or carrot I get is a tiny miracle!

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I have nine plants in my office, everything from an African Violet I found in the garbage to the little cactus my sister-in-law left behind when she moved. I love keeping plants and I do my best to keep them alive.

However, when I came in this morning, my mini-orange plant had mysteriously dried up. The leaves are still green--they're just stiff and curled under. I swear this thing was fine on Friday. Does anyone have a clue as to what happened? I know I watered him Friday afternoon. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I also have a tendency to kill everything plant-like in sight, but I started a little herb garden a few weeks ago and somehow, miraculously, now have a hefty and sweet-smelling basil plant. Anyone got any good recipes which involve a lot of basil ? (not including pesto.)

Ta

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Both my parents have been into gardening and house plants, but all the exposure I had to that as a child was weeding, which left me a little resentful.

Now, I'd like to have plants (and I can't wait to have a house to landscape) but we're afraid our three cats would just terrorize any poor plants we'd buy, as cut flowers seem to be cat snack food around here.

When we first moved down here, my mother-in-law gave me a lovely little African violet. Spritel wouldn't leave it alone, so I tried spraying it with Feli-way (cat pheremone stuff) to see if that would keep him off it, but it killed the violet instead. :(

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I am a potted plant mercenary.

Whenever my mother (former garden club president, general grower of all things) has, for example, an aloe vera, philodendron, spider plant, or giant pot of catnip that has gotten out of control and she wants to be rid of, she gives them to me.

That way, I can say I truly did try, and she doesn't have their chlorophyll on her hands.

I never did manage to kill that damn aloe vera. I put it in the bathroom and it survived off steam for several years before I gave it back to her, saying "obviously, it wants to live." It was the size of a good healthy decorative shrub by then.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

Well, much like Skatter, I love the idea of growing things, but I absolutely suck at it. Even back when all my friends and I were very interested in 'herbal medicine' and we got the idea to grow our own 'medicine', even with that kind of incentive, I still sucked. I mean, my friends all had veritable FORESTS in their basements, and they did it while being waaaaay more heavily uh, 'medicated', than I, I couldn't even get my little seeds to sprout. But to this day, there's nothing I like more than pulling out a batch of growing stuff, and sit in awe and admiration as the mysteries of the universe are laid out before me, in these living things...but then I clean it off and pop it in the microwave, because hey, sometimes you just gotta have a baked potato.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

I remember a few years ago that we got a clipping off someone's bush or something, and Dad put it in a little glass of water, and I would just look at it every day and be amazed by the system of roots that this little clipping was growing. Don't know what became of it, though I suspect we probably planted it after that and no doubt it died, too. We're kind of hit and miss when it comes to plant life

Tonight We Sleep In Separate Ditchesall garden makeover suggestions considered

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2000

In September of last year, my roommate Murray and I bought a plant together... and we named it Puff. (As in "that dog has a puffy tail! here puff, here puff, heehehehhehehhe.") We took care of it last year, Murray doing most of it. This year, he's in Spain, and I am in charge of Puff. Before he left, Murray took me aside and said, "don't kill puff while I'm gone." That pretty much describes how I am with plants, as well-meaning as I am.

So far, Puff is still alive and well... but I have killed two other plants and am on my way with a third. Puff must be well-suited to me.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

I also like the *idea* of growing and tending to plant life. However my good intentios never seem to be enough. My mother is an extraordinary gardener...she has green thumbs, hands, arms..hell..I think she's related to the Jolly Green Giant. At any rate, my mom gardens and gardens very well. We have discovered I was not blessed with the same gift. She no longer gives me cuttings of her plants.

Right now I do have a couple of plants. A spider plant that sits on top my computer desk and which has only 3..oh wait..only 2 leaves left to it..which are hanging limply over the edge of the pot. My cat, Clementine, ate the rest of that plant. I have a Philodandrom (sp?) in my ex-husbands 1989 prom mug. I have had it for 2 years...in water..I haven't transplanted it yet to soil..and there have been several times that the water evoprated from the mug, leaving just dry roots...but..add water and all is well again.

Then I have *the beast*. It is a 4 foot Yucca plant my mohter brought back from Arizona. She gave it to me when she didn't have room in her apartment for it. SHe has since moved to a larger place and has asked for it back..she thinks it is going to die. *pshaw* What gives her *that* idea. The plant is fine. It is unkillable. I have repotted it, my cats loves to climb in it, and it looks good in my livingroom.

I would love to get more plants, but I'd rather not waste the money on something that I know won't live more than a month.

*sigh*

Erin

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

Pointsettas. They're disgustingly easy. They're very forgiving if you don't water them for...say...weeks on end (although I don't recommend doing this on a regular basis). They are hanging plants so my seven cats (seven. Yes I said seven) can't get to them. Usually. You can clip them and start new ones. If a cat eats the leaves, there's only a 75% chance it will end up in a slimy pile of hack in the middle of the hallway right where you will step the next morning. And they look pretty. And exremely impressive if you string them out across your ceiling.

I used to have cactus. A half dozen little tiny ones. Then I got cats. It was a continuing battle between me and the cats. They would uproot the little cacti and bat them around the kitchen floor. I'd rescue the poor shell-shocked little plant and stick it back in the pot. This would go on until at some point they would manage to bat it under something like the fridge and I wouldn't find it until it was too late, and all that was left was a poor, shriveled carcass. You'd think the cats would get spines in their paws. No such luck. I finally gave up and turned to poinsettas. Five years and they haven't managed to kill any of them yet. Neither have I. I think I'm on to something here...

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

Gah. And of course I give the wrong plant name too. The only pointsettas I have in my house are fake ones. I meant philodendrons. I've been working 12+ hours a day. Does that excuse my blunder?

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2000

I don't have a real green jones going on. I do like exotic plants, though. A few years ago, I bought a japanese bonsai tree (Pamie knows what I'm talking about).

That's the first thing I ever tried to keep alive other than a pet. Well, that lasted for about 8 months. Something killed it... a sticky glaze came over it and I tried to research on the Net on what kind of a disease it was, but I couldn't come up with anything. Not even my ladyfriends could suggest anything. I watered it constantly. I starved it. I SOAKED it. I literally cleaned the glaze off each leaf. I covered it. I sunbaked it. Nothing I tried would save it. It finally died a slow (hopefully not painful) death.

Despite that experience, I'd like another bonsai tree. Or a Venus Flytrap.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2000

me = plant assassin

I have a question. I inherited this ivy plant about six months ago when I started my job. It's in front of a window that doesn't get too much or too little sunlight. But I'm confused about the watering. My mother says "Give that plant a DRINK. You can't overwater ivy." But I think I have. Other people in the office say you don't have to water it but once a week or so. Does anybody know? It's just a simple little $5 grocery store ivy. It's looking kind of wilty and pissed off at me.

anyone?

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2000

First off, I am terrible at growing *anything*. I forgot to bring the basil in from the porch and it froze. I forget to water the spider plants and they shrivel up and die. I over-water the cacti and the get all squishy and bloated. Miraculously enough, I have a ficus tree that has stayed alive for several years, but I have no idea why. The damn seems to be indestructible-- even the cat using it as a scratching post didn't kill it.

The real reason for the post though, was to bring up that fact that pointsettas are *extremely* toxic to kitties. A short list of some popular plants that are cat-unfriendly is at http://cats.about.com/bllpoisonplants.htm

Maybe kitty-grass is where it's at...hm... :)e

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2000

I wanted to vouch for pothos as a nearly unkillable plant.

My father could grow orchids out of concrete blocks. Not me. It took me a long time to realize that I don't have the greenthumb he had.

When I first moved out on my own, I wanted a pet. So I got plants. The idea was to see if I could keep plants alive for a while. If I could keep plants alive, then I could reward by choosing an animal companion.

I killed plant after plant. I got 'unkillable' plants. I got cacti. I got wildflowers which are, in case you aren't aware, technically weeds (usually, anyway). Things that would grow like gangbusters amid broken glass, roadkill, sand, litter, alligators (those peels of black rubber truck tire tread you see flung on the side of the road) and gravel would come home from the plant store and gently expire, seemingly overnight, when exposed to regular doses water, stimulating conversation ("...the latest news about Microsoft's legal woes is...") and sunlight.

I was starting to get a complex.

Then I moved into the House of Boys and there were animals and I managed to keep them alive. We even adopted a lop rabbit when his owners were going to abandon him and he lived many long bunny years in peace, lolloping happily (and rather vacantly) around the house.

When I moved out of the House of Boys, I had kitty lust and pined for a cat. I was still afraid that since I was a Plantkiller I wouldn't be able to take care of an animal properly, but then Maxwell The Cat adopted us, and he's the healthiest cat you'd ever wish to meet. (Which is better than he was when we were found by him.)

I figured out that the problem with plants is that they don't meow when it is dinner time nor do they have the plant doctor mailing me postcards that say "it's check up time".

However, I have turned over a new leaf (no pun intended). I have managed to maintain two pothos, both of which are thriving. Two aptly- named Resurrection plants (a.k.a. Peace Lilies) wilt every five days to remind me that I have to water them, which I do, then they perk back up. There's a fern that a visting cat ate down to nubs. I put it on the fireplace mantel and it has come back, which shocked no one more than me. However, before you congratulate me on all this plant splendor sourrounding me, I must confess my most recent murders: I have killed a philodendron, two dwarf roses, a cactus, a Boston fern, a poinsettia, two species of ivy...all within the past three months. Right now I'm working on two African violets (at work). They sit under a fluorescent light 24/7 and get watered once a month and they seem to like the abuse.

One of my bosses asks me to maintain his venerable and ancient monster of a fern, which lives in his office. It has thrived for a decade or more. I told him to make his peace with his plant right now, because I kill plants despite good intentions. He travels a lot and I perpetually forget to water the stupid thing, but it lives on, taunting me.

Maybe the curse has lifted, but I don't think the ivy would agree.

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2000