Face plant

People are getting arrested for poisoning trees, y’all.

(AMERICA!!! EFF YEA!!!)

Did you know about this??? An Alabama football fan poisoned a bunch of trees on Auburn University’s campus because Auburn’s football team beat Alabama.

Um…Tit for Tat ??

What????

That guy could have saved a whole bunch of time and money had he just convinced Auburn to hire ME as its groundskeeper, because I would totally have killed those trees in a week.

Not on purpose, of course.
But still…
I would have put money on the foregone conclusion.

The problem is, I have a black thumb.
(Figuratively. Ew)

In my defense, I didn’t grow up with a garden or surround myself with potted plants very much.

I was always more of a plant destroyer – picking the flowers that grow among the clovers and making interlocking headbands with them, blowing on those puffy things and making a wish and throwing pine cones as far as I could (LOVE throwing pine cones.)

I was also a plant experimenter, and for a science project in school, I grew a whole bunch of soy beans, although I don’t really remember what the hypothesis was. Or the conclusion.

I do remember being grossed out as I unfolded wet Bounty paper towels every day to see if any of the beans SPROUTED and the ones that did looked like a spider's legs.

Maybe the experiment was to make the plants listen to different types of music to see if they grew better than others…

Or maybe I threw some acid rain water on them.

Either way, none of the beans survived.

College is when I really developed my anti-permaculture ways.

When I moved into my first real apartment out of the dorm, I bought a corn plant from Lowe’s. The ones that have bright green leaves attached to a large stump that looks like bamboo.

It should have been a perfect plant for me, since you don’t need to do anything to care for it.

It’s a "desert" plant, which means it needs little to no water.

And it’s an indoor plant, which means it’s perfectly fine sitting there like an end table.

Of course, I didn’t read the instructions on the proper care for the corn plant and made a point to WATER it every day.
A LOT.

I watered it so much that the water filled up the pot and turned into a standing puddle on top of the dirt around the base of the plant.

"Drink up my friend," I’d say (creepily.)

Three weeks later, the plant developed "Root Rot" and started to turn brown. I frowned.

Then I decided that the plant must just need more water....which is about the time all the leaves started to fall off.

In a desperate attempt to quench its thirst (Idiot. I was literally drowning my plant) I actually turned on the shower and STUCK THE PLANT IN THE TUB to mimic nature. It’s raining!!!

That poor plant sat in the shower for at least ten minutes. Specks of dirt got everywhere.

It died completely a few days later.

After college, when I moved into an apartment near the beach in South Carolina, I was in charge of taking care of my mom’s avocado plant, which was an evacuee from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

The first night, bugs ate all the leaves, as I lay sleeping.

I brought the holey plant to Lowe's the next day to acquire some bug poison, but was turned down by the lady behind the counter.

"You don’t want to kill the plant," she said. "Just keep it inside and try to move it by different windows throughout the day that get the most light."

I ended up forgetting to do that, and forgetting to water it, and a few months later when my mom came to visit, it was barely alive.

Strike eleven came in the form of an azalea plant. I was writing an article for a newspaper about this guy who would win the South Carolina azalea plant competition every year, held at the local mall.

(COMMUNITY NEWS!!! EFF YEA!!!)

This guy’s entire backyard was a maze of potted azalea plants with delicate flowers of every color variety: white ones, pink ones, purple ones. He even showed me how he GRAFTED some to cross-breed, making gorgeous petal color combinations.

"Would you like one of the plants to take home?" he asked me.

"Oh, I kill plants," I said honestly. "That wouldn’t be very nice to your crop here."

"No, you’ll be fine," he said. "Here, take this one. Keep it outside by your front door."

"Well…OK," I said.

The plant was almost as tall as I was, with a beautiful single pink flower.

After some confusion about how I was going to transport the plant to my house (I suggested it be shoved in the trunk...he told me the back seat was fine), I brought it home and showed it off to my roommates.

I envisioned wearing the flower in my hair when it got big and pink enough.

Yet, even though I WATERED it and TALKED to it every morning on my way out the door, the one single flower began to droop.

And the five or so more flowers that the guy promised did not bloom.

The plant was sent to the curb when it became nothing but twigs.

Despite my shoddy plant background, I tried again late last year.

I tried to grow my own avocado from a pit.

I did everything I was supposed to do. I put toothpicks in the sides, balanced it halfway in a cup filled with water and put it on the ledge by the sink. IT’S HOW MY MOM DOES IT!!!

Yet, a month later, even with me regularly changing out the water, it was clear that there would be no sprouting.

The pit had gathered a large amount of mold and started to smell.

My roommate was grateful when I finally gave up and chucked it into the trash. Even today, I still don’t know what the problem was. Black thumb strikes again.

Maybe I should have played classical music for it.

Or put it in the shower.

-Jenny