While Wearing My Coordinating Floral Hat, Apron, Gloves, and Weeding Kneepads
Yesterday afternoon. I am standing over a table of zucchini transplants contemplating a purchase. This is a yellow variety that looks to have the interesting mottled leaf pattern I like. I am holding a tentative purchase in one hand while I scan the table, holding out for the healthiest looking plant in the bunch. I find one that looks to be just a bit nicer than the one I am currently holding and as I reach to replace the old choice with the new choice a thought suddenly and very unexpectedly enters my mind.
I feel sorry for the plant I am putting back! I am not giving it a home, a nice place to grow and flourish. What if no one buys it? What if it sits on that table for weeks waiting to spread its roots into some good earth and I had lead it on to a sense of false hope during those few fleeting moments that I held it in my hand and now that hope is crushed because I chose something “slightly better.” And what if the plant was just having a bad day? Last night was hard! What if we had some kind of bond, a plant-to-human connection that I tossed away so cavalierly simply because its’ leaves weren’t as large as the other plant’s leaves!
And as I stand there paralyzed with this sudden and completely nut-so guilt, I am struck even deeper by the horror that I have seriously gone over the edge and become the plant version of the crazy cat lady or the sculpturist who believes that the clay speaks to her.
And then it happens again at another store, this time over a lavender plant.
Ummm…. help.
June 7th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Yeah…I’m with you. At least now I know I’m in good company :).
Do you think they’ll let you make a coordinating straitjacket too?
June 7th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Never fear-for I buy those sorry looking little plants, bring them home plant them into their new soil. Give them lots of love, and water. A good amount of kid stomping, dog chewing, and repeated offensives of thinking “is that a weed or a plant” Only the strong survive-but hey it’s better than sitting on a shelf waiting to die.
Ok all joking aside-I do not buy the best looking plant. I go for something in the middle. That way if I kill it I don’t have guilt(it was on its way out anyway) If it lives and strives than I feel like I am the uber gardener because I saved this poor little plant from death.
June 7th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Oh, I anthropomorphize pretty much all the plants I encounter. That’s why I find thinning out seedlings to be such a traumatic experience.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
It’s like Sophie’s Choice.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Well, you are nut-so. But I have done the same thing for a slightly different reason.
I have bought slightly lesser plants because it is more satisfying to see them flourish if they came from something not so perfect.
Give that silver medal zucchini a home. If it dies on you at least you have a tiny excuse. :)
June 7th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Hooray, I’m not alone! I have the well-planned garden section, and then I have the “oh you poor baby” adoptees. [rueful grin] If I have a plant and it’s neither edible nor native, odds are good (60%?) that it was a softhearted rescue. And if I’m making a planned purchase, I generally get the ones that I think I can save, but that most people wouldn’t pick.
June 7th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I’ve done the exact same thing. I don’t think it’s too bad. It’s because they are living things! Oh but now I’m sad for the little plant too! Did you save him or take the bigger one?
June 7th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I used to do this as a child whenever I was allowed to pick out a new doll. I think I read “The Velveteen Rabit” one too many times….
June 7th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Oh man I have a bit of heart ache every time i have to thin seedlings. I’m not very good at it and often times I make my bf do it for me.
June 7th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Nothing wrong with crazy ladies - of the plant or cat variety!
June 7th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
This is the exact kind of guilt that lead me to sleep with 632 stuffed animals when I was 4 or 5. I didnt want a one of them to possibly feel rejected…
June 7th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I do the same, and I buy both - the first I picked up and that healthy one in the back. Yesterday I bought two apple mint, because there were only two left, and the girl told me there were none.
June 7th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Welcome to the crazy club, Gayla. I do that all the time. I’m doomed to always go with the one that first caught my eye for exactly the same reason (I’m sure subconsciously there must be some reason I was drawn to that particular plant). But with me it’s not limited to plants. Oh no, inanimate objects too. The Ikea marketplace is a real treat. Sigh.
June 7th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Awe Gayla it’s awful I work at the garden in home depot down here in Texas and oh my we throw out so many great plants if they are drying out or look too little. Trees! Grown trees that have sat for too long we just toss them out. I feel that little plants pain! I try to save them all and purchase them at discount, but I only have room for so many. heh discount for being himself. he can’t help it if he was small. I think I’m a nut-so too. :(
June 8th, 2007 at 12:45 am
I do it as well. We are all crazy plant people. I am not ashamed to admit that I am a crazy cat person too. I should start knitting to round it all out.
June 8th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Ya’ll are cracking me up! I love your stories.
Beth: I did not keep the other one. It was a healthy plant. I’m sure someone will buy it.
Sarah: It took me years to get over pulling out invasive plants.
Irene: Working there must be horrible for that reason. I have heard stories about the plants they throw in the dumpster.
June 8th, 2007 at 9:02 am
I do the same thing as well..with everything, plants, stuffed animals, animals at the shelter, ..I also can’t thin seedlings…so I have to put just one seed in each comtainer or the ground and wait and plant another if the first didn’t spring up. That’s rare though.
I got teary eyed reading that others do the same thing. I thought I was just unique. I am actually happier to know that other people think living beings of one sort or another might “feel” rejected or happy being “chosen”.
There have been interesting studies to see if plants react to humans and animals.
My mom and I are both cat ladies..and dogs..off the street and into our homes or friends homes..etc..you get the picture..what can I say..I am a softie.
June 8th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
This post made me laugh out loud. Crazy plant lady~
When I’m plant shopping, I can’t stand to see a plant that has fallen over and is just left there. I pick them up. And yes, people always ask me to assist them. I do, even though I don’t work there.
June 9th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
So long as you’re not screaming gibberish and throwing trays of wilted pansies at people who approach you, I’m sure you’re alright.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:45 am
LOL Gayla-
You’re not the crazy cat lady, you’re Charlie Brown picking out his Christmas tree..you remember, the one that’s dropping its needles and just needs a little love?
June 15th, 2007 at 11:39 am
[…] With the heat rising to oppressive levels here in Toronto, the pressure to get things planted or sold off seems to have arrived earlier than ever this year. Yeah, I definitely don’t have enough guilt as-is. I came home with my bike basket overflowing with plants the other day — partly because I am the Angelina Jolie of the plant world (minus the lips) with my insatiable need to expand the brood and partly because I just felt so dang bad for that nasturtium (or three. Twelve if you count that they come 4 per pack). […]
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:54 am
[…] Still no idea who went after the thistles but I have since replaced that patch with a native switch grass, Panicum virgatum. As previously mentioned, I am intensely nostalgic and possibly a little nuts in the ways that I anthropomorphize plants. This is only made worse by the fact that each plant comes with a story and a history. Like the daylilies that were gifted to me by a friend. Or the yarrow that was given to me by a stranger who happened to be driving by with a clump of yarrow in the backseat of her car. In many cases I can recall where and when I received or purchased the plant. These feelings of attachment and compassion for the life of each plant is so strong at times that it is very difficult for me to remove and discard plants, even when I know it is beneficial to the garden. I’ve also got a stubborn streak that thinks I can shove one more plant in somewhere or bring that diseased plant back past the point of no return. My style is very Do As I Say, Not As I Do and I often struggle with the very actions I know to be right and advise other people to carry out. The only positive I can glean from the Operation Garden Terrorism experience is that it has prematurely forced me to carry out my longterm plan to replace some of the more invasive gift plants with natives. But just because I can find a positive doesn’t mean I’ll be thanking the ad hanging dudes or the thistle stomping stranger anytime soon. […]