I'm really bad about keeping things alive... and by things I mean flowers. I failed to inherit the "green thumb" gene from my mother's side of the family. You see, my mother, her sister, and my grandmother all have yards full of plants. They like to go to the home improvement stores, buy plants that are on clearance (you know the ones that are on their last leg of life? the ones that the store neglects to water anymore and have dried up to a crisp?), and then bring them back to life. I wish I had pictures of their plants so you could see what I'm talking about, but alas, I do not. Maybe I can get some next time I'm in town.....
Anyways, back to this little surprise. A couple of months ago my grandmother gave me a yellow pot of violets. She thought they'd look beautiful in my classroom on a bookshelf or on my desk. Sure Grandma.... Don't get me wrong, the flowers were beautiful & my classroom could have definitely used a little bit of color. But, I can barely keep things alive in my own home. I was not about to take that plant into my classroom and let all of my students witness the effects of my black thumb. So, instead the violets found their home on my kitchen counter top above my sink. The flowers lasted much longer than I imagined! However, I noticed that they were starting to wilt despite my careful watering. So, I thought it was time to put the pot of flowers out on my balcony so they could catch some rays.
As you can see, it's pretty tiny. The only thing I had to place out there was this metal shelf (now there are two chairs out there for my & the fiance to sit out there). I have no idea who originally produce it; I snagged this for free while we were cleaning out a home my uncle was starting a renovation on. But I thought this would be the perfect place to set flowers (what was I thinking??) or outdoor decorations on.
So the violets went out on the patio, and they perked up a bit. But, within a couple weeks, they had all died. Typically I would have emptied out the pot, cleaned it, and put it away in a cabinet until I found another use for it. However, since I live in an apartment, I had no where to dump the soil/dirt. I hate the idea of dumping perfectly good soil into a trash can. Why? I have no idea. I don't pretend to understand my own insanity. So there the yellow flower pot with soil sat on my balcony totally neglected for over a month.
My mom and my future mother-in-law told me that they flowers would have died eventually anyways. They said they were only annuals, so if I wanted violets again, I would have had to replant next year. This made me feel a little better. Granted, they both could have been lying to me to make me feel better, but I didn't care.
So, about a week ago, I decided to let the cats out on the balcony for a little sun. When I stepped out, I noticed something was growing in the yellow pot. Upon investigation, I determined it was a weed. There was absolutely no way that the flower could have grown back. I mean, it was an annual, right? WRONG!
The flower had grown back! I couldn't believe it! Initially there was only 1 flower in bloom. And after it died back, another flower bloomed. And as you can see above, after that one died back, as of yesterday, TWO flowers have bloomed! Sorry if you think this amount of excitement is a little too much, but I seriously get a big smile on my face every time I look outside and see these flowers in all their purple glory.
Side note: After looking at the picture above, I realize that the violets' purple glory is being ruined by that glass ash tray sitting beside it. Though it might not seem like that big of a deal to some, I do want to clarify that I do not smoke, nor does the fiance. We both joke around and say that if either one of us starting smoking it would be a divorceable offense (though I don't think either one of us is really joking). I initially purchased the ash tray right before the move mainly because we both have family members that smoke. Since I refuse to allow people to smoke in my living space, I figured the least I could do was have an ash tray waiting for them when I kicked them out onto the balcony to light up.
So here's a close up of that purple glory:
Do any of you have black thumbs like me? Or maybe you have been blessed with green thumbs like my mom & grandma? Any tips for someone like me?
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