Life in boxes and pots confuses my plants and they hold me responsible. I will try to earn their trust….
I DON’T HAVE a garden anymore. It’s the one thing I miss about apartment life. Almost my entire yard in East Texas was a garden.
But I do have a patio and it is filled with flowers, in pots and boxes hung on the railings. I have my Buddha water feature out there, a couple of chairs, a big umbrella and a small fan for hot days.
I am learning the difference between a garden, which for the most part is a natural thing, and pots and boxes, which are not.
I think the biggest difference is how confused the plants get on my patio. Gardens drain. Even with holes in the bottom, some pots don’t. At least not very well. I had some plants that, during a couple of weeks of on-and-off rain, some heavy, got very waterlogged and started to sag.
I went out and poked more holes in the bottoms of the pots, drained them as best I could. But, with three days of hot sun this past weekend, with high temps, those same plants and some on the boxes started to wilt. In just three days the drenching was forgotten.
“What’s going on here?” the plants wanted to know. So, this morning I watered and fertilized. Watering will be a daily thing as we sit under heat warnings for indexes as high as 110. That wasn’t all that unusual in East Texas but here it counts as incredible, and unusual, heat.
True, my garden in Texas could get soaked, but the soil drained. It got hot but my drip irrigation kept roots moist. And, I had my yard filled with native plants that, when it got hot and dry, said “bring it on!” Here the yo-yo weather is something the potted and boxed plants arent’ used to.
I sincerely apologized to them this morning as I gave them their water and fertilizer. I begged them to stick out, told them that they bring me peace and beauty when I sit among them. They listened, then told me I am on probation. They will wait and see if my word is any good.
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He also writes the intodementia.com blog about his family’s experience with dementia. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].
This year has been particularly rough on plants in the garden and those in pots. Too cold. Too wet. Now too hot. One thing you do not have there is varmints eating them when you leave town for 2 nights.