confessions of a plant killer

I tend to our garden. I see to it that the grass is always watered so it stay green. I also see to it that the lavenders we planted in our small front yard are watered. I mow the grass too. I don’t mind doing all of these at all because it is such a tiny garden and it doesn’t take a lot of time and energy to mow it and to water it. I like doing it and I am happy to see the healthy grass and plant in our front and back yard.

But why do I always kill the plants in our house?

It’s not like I don’t care for them. I do. But they still always die on me.

I get plants as gifts from my pupils and their moms and I appreciate all these plants. I placed all of them somewhere I think they will fit and thrive better.  I talk to them, water them, weed them, etc. but they always die. Remember that orchid we bought for our guest toilet? Yeah. That died too.

And the orchid shown on the picture is an orchid given to us on our wedding day.  It stayed at my in-laws house during the time we’ve been in China and it had been healthy there. When we moved to our own place here in Graz, we took it from them to bring to our new place.  We call it our wedding orchid and I am the steward of it.

Maybe it was a mistake to take it from my in-laws’ house because it’s never healthy as it was when it was there. I think I might be killing it too. I am not sure but when we took it, it has a lot of blooms. Now there’s just one and only bloom and the other branches are dead.  I said to myself, it is sad that I unintentionally killed all the other plants in our house but killing this one too would be a catastrophe. I can’t kill our wedding orchid! That’s just simply not right. It should thrive better under my care.

I had to do something to prevent myself from killing it.

So I googled some articles on how to take care of orchids and other plants and I learned that I should not water them that often.  Ha! It’s like that the best way to take care of orchids is not to take care of them at all. But I followed the tips I got from the net. I took out all the dead roots of our wedding orchid and repotted it. I still water it but not that often and not that much anymore. So far, it looks good because it is growing some new leaves.

I really hope that it can recover from my overwatering. I hope that it will live and bloom many flowers again.

Tagged as: hobbies, home