All We Need is Science

As some of you may know, I am a plant killer with a brown/desiccation thumb. This spring, I am attempting to change my nature and grow things instead of kill them. I’ve tried to overcome my deficiency by using intuition when dealing with plants, and apparently, my instincts are all wrong. For instance, I once had a woman for whom I was house sitting show me around her house and try to gently teach me how to determine when a plant needs watering. She would say helpful things like, “See, the leaves of this plant look slightly duller and wilted. It needs water” The plants all looked identical to me.

This spring, I will attempt to hone a new approach to my gardening: science. Attempting to employ this new technique, I went out to examine pansies (or at least I think they were pansies) that I planted this spring that are now flowerless and approaching brown. Oh well, this must be a bad season for pansies, right? The state of the flowers struck me as particularly strange since very similar flowers planted nearby by my roommate are thriving and more beautiful than ever!

I planted the flowers under an overhang of the house, and while during planting I realized that this meant I would need to water them regularly, the flowers always appeared wet so I didn’t bother. This week, science compelled me to get on my hands and knees (sans magnify glass) to take a closer look at the sad flower remains. Apparently, the flowers –looked- wet due to the mud that had splashed onto them during heavy rain fall. So essentially, I never watered the flowers and I covered them with mud.

The mysteries of nature are revealing themselves to me.