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I am famously inept at gardening. I generally do well with pets and kids, but plant life is apparently where my capabilities end. I do my part. I water them, set them in the correct sun/shade combination, and such. They generally flourish for about a month or so and then commit slow, agonizing suicide.
Perhaps some background information would be of assistance. I grew up with a mother who adored her plants, specifically her ferns. She would lovingly and painstakingly plant new petunias or similar flowers every year, she coddled a rose garden along one side of the backyard fence, she planted morning glories against the fence in the side yard facing the breakfast nook (or as we called it, the dining room) so that they climbed the wooden structure and bloomed like magic every morning, she treasured the azaleas along the side of the house. And without fail, my punishment for any given crime was to either water the whole damn nursery or pick out the weeds.
I believed for many years that she scarred me for life by doing this. I refused to consider any plant-like organism as anything but a plague on the order of kudzu.
The ferns were the worst. Those mothertruckers hung from the eaves of the front porch and watering them meant watering yourself, since no matter how deep you stuck the hose into the pot, water inevitably found it's way down each and every frond in miniature waterfalls onto your person. This was not the most loathsome part, however. She would bring those mofos inside at the first sign of frost every single year and they would shed worse than both the long-haired cats combined. There was so much organic material lining the floor of the kitchen and "dining room" that imagining you were on the floor of a rainforest was not a stretch. This was only highlighted, of course, by the fact that she chose to sit them one on each side of the "dining room" which meant that not a single person could enter or leave without brushing up against them. And every time a person did so, half the fronds would immediately fall to the ground, only to be replaced within mere hours by double the lost amount in fresh growth.
My sister and I both considered burning them, shredding them to the roots, leaving them out during a particularly hard freeze and enjoying every moment of their excruciating death, but in the end, we knew that if the ferns died, so would mom. She still has the vile organisms, but now they reside in the greenhouse at my stepdad's school all winter. I have to truly wonder if this was a condition of their marraige, and I feel sure that it was. I know that I would never marry a person who kept such loathsome things indoors. It's on the same scale as having elephant dung in the house.
But back to the present issue. I bought some plants last spring with my Mother's Day giftcard to a local nursery (I had grand delusions of starting a garden) that were supposed to be succulents and fairly impervious to neglect drought. They might have done magnificently, had I actually planted them. Instead, they sat in their plastic containers until half of them died from forces of nature somewhere during the winter. I set what was left of them in a corner of the "garden" and ignored them completely. The ones that survived are thriving. Darwinism at it's best.
However, my father-in-law, being retired and not having enough to keep himself occupied while tearing his own house to shreds and rebuilding it piece by piece, built each of his children with a residence of their own some handsome wooden planter boxes. Two, to be exact. They are square pine boxes with beadboard sides, unfinished, so that they resemble mini pine coffins glaring in the afternoon light. I hope this is not foreshadowing at its best, because I am now inspired to buy the brightest red flowers with the darkest green leaves imaginable and plunk them directly into a comfortable nest of nutrient-rich soil in my new beautifully cherry-wood-stained planters.
Which means the first order of business is to find some stain and an appropriate tool for application. Which means they will most likely remain handsome, empty, glaring pine coffin-like structures for many years to come.
Please don't get the wrong idea. I will no doubt scour every nursery and plant-selling edifice within a forty-mile radius for the next several weeks until I find
