Monday, November 15, 2010

A Question For My Gardening Council

Okay, experts on flora and fauna out there, I'm looking at you. (Or really, just the flora experts. I have nothing to ask concerning fauna.) My question for you is this:

What the heck is up with my overachieving rescue plant?

I love the concept of rescue plants. These are the potted plants left over after Mother's Day or Secretary's Day, or any other day appropriate for giving a potted plant to someone you know will have to water it for the rest off the year and feel guilty when it dies. You'll find rescue plants wilting in a wheelbarrow outside of the grocery store and marked down to $2 from $19.99.

They're kind of like rescue puppies, without the nasty stains on the couch.

Anyway, I love rescue plants. I plunk down my two bucks, take it home, dig a haphazard hole in the flower bed, shove the plant in there and forget about it.

Man, these plants are GRATEFUL. They gulp in those soil-borne nutrients and sunshine and explode in flowery kisses. Except for the ones that die, but hey, they were three-quarters dead already so you don't have to spend much time feeling bad about them.

The rescue plant shown above was one of the grateful ones, an overachiever all summer, but now that fall is here it's gone crazy. "Thank you, oh, thank you for rescuing me from the wheelbarrow outside Dillons!" it whispers every time I leave the house. My question for you, my gardening council, is this:

What the heck?

Do you see what I'm talking about? Look closely at the photo. Still don't see what I'm talking about? Well, maybe you'll see from this view that more completely reveals how truly horrible my flower beds are right now.


No, not the geranium, I know what's up with that. What puzzles me is that all three colors of daisy are coming out of one root. I repeat: What the heck?

I am no gardening genius, although you might not believe me looking at the shot above. (Ha! I jest!)

But aren't all the flowers on a single pot ordinarily the same color?

Obviously my rescue plant is a mutt.

2 comments:

  1. This happens when a nursery such as the supplier to Dillons mixed seed or grew one color from another and they convert to the strongest genetic color of the two. Man played with god's design.

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  2. I certaining don't have a green thumb, but I thought the flowers should all be the same color. I don't get plants to tell you the truth. I plant things every year just hoping somethime comes up and looks half way decent.

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