Off the Mark by Mark Parisi for January 26, 2023

Same.

And yet I have a couple of plants in my back yard which I’ve been trying to kill for over 5 years.

True, unfortunately. But I never mean it!!

You reap what you sow, but it can be pretty grim.

Not only that, but the plants I do have are fakes!

And this is why I don’t have plants! I have nothing against them, I just don’t have a green thumb.

This is funny!

Truth, most plants die from to much love .

Shouldn’t he have a black thumb?

herbicidal maniac

Oh my! That’s ME!

One spring, my husband had to go to an out-of-town conference. He left me with strict care instructions for his tiny shoots (garden veggies) beneath the grow lights. When he returned, he went straight to the plants to see the state of them. He said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Wow. They look okay. I can’t believe you didn’t kill them. Because I know you tried.”

I saw a TV program a while back (Black Mirror maybe – or something like that) where a man suddenly found that he could hear plants. He was greatly disturbed to hear them scream when something was cut off the plant and went on a quest to stop people doing things to plants. Needless to say, the screech was terrible when mowing the lawn.Interesting program

Probably. I kill houseplants. My outside perennial garden is doing okay, though.

A 32,000 year old seed was found, planted and it grew!!! When I read that, I thought of all the times I’ve planted seeds and — zilch!

It’s a really weird thought, but, since most plant breeding is to make plants better for our use, often at the cost of traits the plants evolved to better survive in the wild (like toxic seeds, shattering (the ability for fruits or pods to burst upon ripeness and throw their seeds far from them, for maximum distance of spread) being small tough and wiry so they can survive in more adverse conditions, etc.) to a plant, Luther Burbank (very famous plant breeder) is probably the equivalent of Josef Mengele.

I had a zamioculcas which went from lush to two spindly little shoots, and it stayed that way for more than a year. One of the stems withered and died and within a week a new shoot appeared, so I have hope that it will regenerate itself. As Jeff Goldblum said in “Jurassic Park”, “Life will find a way.”

Full belly laugh…

Yes!! Love it! I have such a “brown thumb” that I don’t even try growing anything. I come by it honestly; my mom even killed a plastic plant! Thanks for the laugh.

Took me a while to get this one, and it shouldn’t have, considering what I do to plants.

I have a thriving collection of Evergreenis Plasticis

Time to trim some leaves…