Thoughts: Hannah's Blog

If you had been following my blog, from time to time I do write a lot about plants or my lessons from gardening. Some people are blessed with a green thumb (a special knack for growing plants) Sadly, I don’t possess one! For me it’s always been trial and error.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I come to know or learn the reason why it failed, sometimes I don’t even know – much like programming; how some of my code doesn’t work – I don’t know why and sometimes my code works and I still don’t know why!

I feel it is better at times to not know all the answers! Just go with the flow.

Recently we moved to a new house with garden space – yay! I was pretty excited about all the flowering plants I’d get to plant, all the flowers that would bloom, all the creepers that would creep up the railings and make the house look green, cosy and colourful.

None of my visions seem to be coming true. My first fail was with the Bougainville plants. It was planted by the gardener in the corners so it would grow and bloom and provide a colourful covering. It did not grow, in fact they dried up and died. I got to know it was due to lack of enough sunlight. Our house casts shadow on the gardening area cutting off adequate sunlight for a Bougainville plant to thrive.

Next up Rangoon plant. It has flowers that change colours(from white to light pink to dark pink) and it is a creeper. I found an ideal place where it can creep up till the first floor. But nope it didn’t grow, it kept dying because that exact spot had too much sunlight! Or something must be wrong with the ground there.

Money plant! The ones indoors are doing fine. But the ones I planted outside refuses to grow. I wanted it to climb up the only tree we have, but it refused. Maybe due to the tree’s shadow covering that area or the cats or squirrels constantly keep pulling it out. Not just that plant, the cats keep pulling out other plants as well. Just this morning I saw new shoots from chrysanthemums seedlings in 2 pots being brutally pulled out. So was the lemongrass, from the roots. Some time back it was the red dahlia that suffered the same fate. What’s with cats pulling off plants? Is it one of their hobbies?

The other failure case was marigold. I had placed the pot near the entrance, I felt it was not receiving enough sunlight and decided to take it to the terrace, it received too much sunlight and started to dry out. Now moved to partial light in the balcony. Not sure if it will recover from the constant change in environment I’m putting it in.

I can continue the list with other plants but it might sound repetitive and boring so I’ll stop right here. So what’s the lesson? What’s the takeaway here? (Apart from the fact that I am bad at gardening) The other plants that seem to grow and bloom well. The plants that have failed to die in spite of my “care”! The plants that have managed to survive!

Jasmine, some of the roses, some of the chrysanthemums, some creepers, red bells, the indoor fig plant, indoor money plant and philodendron. Slow growth, but I’m happy that it is at least growing! I wonder if I were a plant, what kind of plant would I be? Where am I? In a pot? On the ground? Do I have place to put out roots? What kind of environment I’m in?

Do I get enough “son”light? Do I get watered with the word consistently? Under watered? Under nourished? Dry and dying or healthy and thriving? Only the Gardener knows my true state. I’d like to end with a couple of lines from one of the songs by Casting Crowns’ called “Thrive”

We know we were made for so much more
Than ordinary lives
It’s time for us to more than just survive
We were made to thrive