Green Thumbs

I do not have a green thumb. That is NOT to say that neither of the short thick digits on my hands, next to the index finger and opposable to each of the other four digits, is green, although they aren’t. That IS to say that I am congenitally incapable of creating, supporting, or even sustaining plant life. In my care, cut flowers wilt in minutes as opposed to days. Oddly, anthuriums (I live in Hawaii) seem to last for weeks. I suspect they have low self- esteem and thrive on neglect. Potted plants do not fare much better. Plants that are healthy and full of color at Lowe’s Garden Center, inevitably become pale and sickly in Richard’s Living Room. The tasteful, if sparsely attended, funeral soon follows. Even artificial plants to which I invariably resort, start dropping pieces of foliage within a few months of taking up residence with at my house.

My attempts at gardening have been, at best, disappointing. I love corn-on-the-cob. My effort to grow it resulted in neither corn, nor cob. I thoroughly enjoyed the cucumber I coaxed from the soil, but failed completely to grow green beans, or peas, or carrots, or squash, or even radishes (yes, I admit it, I failed to grow radishes). My tomatoes, on the other hand, thrived. I was feeling quite proud of myself until I discovered that the tiny tomato roots had found their way to the cesspool. Needless to say, my plans to put by some home-canned tomatoes for winter, were dashed by the discovery. I was pleased that my plans for personally surviving the winter after eating copious amounts of naturally fertilized fruit (yes, tomatoes are a fruit), were not.

If my attempts at gardening were disappointing, my attempt at farming was a disaster. In Kona, Hawaii, everybody (well almost everybody) grows Kona Coffee. I was told it was essentially a weed and would grow despite my best efforts to sustain it. I planted 100 plants on my quarter acre. Properly interred, properly fertilized, properly watered and suitable spaced from each other (and the adjacent cesspool), 70 plants didn’t last the week. The rest struggled on. I planted 70 more plants, 10 survived, the rest were laid to rest in the growing green waste pile (I don’t know why it’s called green waste, it isn’t green, at least not anymore). I planted 60 more plants, 5 survived, and so I decided I really preferred a 45-plant orchard anyway; 40 plants survive to this day and produce occasional coffee beans; enough for several cups of coffee if I had the energy or inclination to pick, process, and roast them. I don’t.

My friend Bob DOES have a green thumb. His biggest problem is controlling the lush jungle that surrounds his house. My hibiscus hedge looks like a tank ran through it repeatedly. His is a work of art in green, white, and red. My ground cover is heavy on the ground, light on the cover. His ground cover is a carpet of undulating green with sparkling accents of red and yellow. His fruit trees bear voluminous amounts of delicious fruit every year. My remaining fruit tree (don’t ask, I don’t like to talk about it) will bring forth a few morsels every few years.

I don’t know why my thumbs are so un-green. I care for my plants. I water them on occasion, and I’ve been known to fertilize them on rare occasion, but then I put on lots of fertilizer to make up for it. It may be because I don’t talk to them, although I have been known to utter a mild expletive over a newly discovered plant corpse. I don’t read to them, or play music for them, or gently wash their little leaves and petals. I don’t even spritz them on a regular basis as advised in my Plant Care for Dummies.

I suspect my plants know I don’t really, really care about them. I like the idea of having plants, but I’m just not willing to make the commitment. Sure, I purchase them with the best of intentions, and I try, I really do, but my plants just don’t understand me. It’s all about their wants, their needs. It doesn’t matter that I work hard every day so they can have a pot to live in. And then a newer, younger, prettier plant comes along and I admit it, I want it. Hmm, I wonder if my plants aren’t just dying from lack of care and attention: I wonder if they are committing suicide.