A columnist in our local paper, whose opinion I respect (and whose job I wouldn't mind having, except that I would have to contract out the parts about gourmet cooking), stated that "death is a big part of gardening." Whew! Was I happy to hear that! I knew it was a big part of my gardening, but I didn't know everybody else had this problem. Although after the incident the other day (see previous blog entry), I'm not sure that death necessarily refers to the plant kingdom, if you know what I mean.
I've lost six plants already this year, and one more looks well on its way to following them. Naturally it has made me wonder what I am doing wrong. The columnist I mentioned, though, has really helped me out in this respect. He says whenever he loses a plant, he engages in "transference," better known in layman's terms as "shifting the blame." This means it is the plant's fault that it died, not the planter's. Hey, I like this guy better and better.
The problem when flowers die is that they don't get an autopsy, so you don't know why they died. If you knew that, presumably you could prevent other flowers of the same type from keeling over. But all you have is a long list of possibilities, like when you go to the doctor with mysterious symptoms: Could be overwatering. Could be underwatering. Too much sun. Not enough sun. Needed more plant food. You overfed it. Garden's too crowded. The plant got lonely. Insects got it. A weird virus spread by chickens got it. You didn't play enough country music for it. Who knows.
Unfortunately the columnist did not give any specific advice in this area. His examples were all about eggplant and such things, which I don't even eat, let alone attempt to grow. Maybe the next time I lose a plant, I'll send it to him and ask him to do an autopsy.
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