It's a Jungle Out There

You may be wondering why there is a picture of an African Violet here. Well, today I am bereft of inspiration so you all will be subjected to the True Confessions of a Plant Killer. Do not allow the images of lush foliage fool you. I am a killer even though my murders are never premeditated. Nonetheless, I seem to be able to dispatch any green thing with cruel efficiency. This lovely little plant is a cutting from a violet Mr. Lime gave my mother. She could make pressure treated lumber bloom. We have this cutting because the original plant got so huge it crawled out of it's pot. I don't believe it was with any malice such as Seymour in the musical Little Shop of Horrors. I'm still not turning my back on this innocent looking thing though. It may someday realize my herbicidal tendencies and decide to strike pre-emptively.




Here we have Mike, our spider plant. Yes, we name many of the plants that manage to survive sharing air space with me. This tradition was started by Mr. Lime who nursed back to health a Swedish Ivy I nearly dispatched after leaving it out in a hard frost. One day it was a thick, lush, vital looking thing. The next morning it was a shivering, frozen shade of its former self. It was reduced to one stick with 2 leaves clinging tenaciously to the stalk. When it was apparent the Ivy would survive in some fashion Mr. Lime christened it Sven. I suppose it was rather like the practice in the dark ages of not naming a child until you knew it would survive infancy. Unfortunately, when Sven seemed to have recovered I tried to show him some love to make up for nearly killing him. I loved him to death. It was not unlike kindergarten when I overfed the class fish because he looked hungry. I feared for my own life when he was found belly up in his bowl. Lucky for me, Mr. Lime is not into an eye for a leaf justice.




This is Shlomo the Wandering Jew. I suspect Shlomo would wander right out of here if he were actually ambulatory. Forty years in a desert couldn't be any worse than waiting for me to water him. I picked all the dead bits off Shlomo last week and moved him to the only spot that gets any sun. Mr. Lime asked if I had watered the plant. What silly man expects that?














Here is Phil the Philodendron, creative name, huh? Phil and I get along just swimmingly because he seems to thrive on the kind of neglect only I can give. I like Phil because his tendrils get as unruly as my hair. We have an understanding and mutual appreciation about this neglect/unruly appearance thing. Still, Mr. Lime will fuss over Phil, coo to him, run his hands gently over the leaves, and reassure Phil that he'll always take good care of him. Makes me wonder if I need to photosynthesize in order to get that sort of attention.











This poor nameless conglomeration of doomed greenery has no name in spite of the fact that it has survived for a number of years. Well, the philodendron and the big spikey thing survived. There were some other things in there that did not fare so well. I think it was originally a sympathy arrangement I received, could have been in memory of Sven.














I know you all may not believe me when I say I have a black thumb of death since I am showing you all these seemingly healthy looking plants. Trust me, they live only because Mr. Lime attends to them and has more or less banned me from any aspect of their care. Here we see an example of a plant I nurtured with my own unskilled hands. I planted it, watered it and...well, that's about it. Granted it is now winter and things don't grow to well, but this is roughly how fruitful the plant was even during the peak growing season in summer. I think out of the 8 tomato plants I planted I harvested 4 tomatoes. That might be an overestimation. I planted basil and oregano too. They did about as well as this plant. In the past I've even been able to kill mint when I attempted to cultivate it. That is skill my friends.






I hate plastic and silk flowers but have no skill with live ones. I've resorted to buying them pre-killed. See? Dead plants can actually be lovely. I guess it's all a matter of how you kill them. And aren't these artfully arranged flower corpses?










Well, all of that to remind you that Mr. Lime bought me an Aerograden for Christmas because it was advertised as guaranteed to grow (read that as Michelle-proof). I planted it right before New Year's and by golly here it is actually growing! Of course, we are only 2 weeks into this. It's early yet. Don't go naming the sprouts yet or anything.