A few weeks ago my parents went on a lovely summery holiday to Zante in Greece. Their mistake… leaving me in charge of their plants. Now, neither my Mom or Dad are exactly Alan Titchmarsh, but they do take pride in their very pretty garden and the reason their garden is so pretty, is down to their many pot plants and hanging baskets.
As well as these pretty pots, my Dad asked me to water the yet to mature fruits & vegetables in his little greenhouse which is at the top of the garden. Oh boy! No pressure at all. Aside from a hardy Yucca plant that survived several years under my care, I have never managed to keep any plant alive for very long. Because of this, I asked exactly when they need to be watered, Tuesday and Thursday or Friday were my instructions as they would be watering them on the Sunday night before they were due to leave on the Monday morning.
So, Tuesday, round to my parents house I went. Every plant, shrub and seed was watered thoroughly. The only concern I had, was whether I had given them too much water or not, however, they looked fine. I went back again on Thursday evening to water everything again. This was when I was faced with utter horror!! My mothers beautiful yellow hanging basket (no idea what the little yellow flowers are called), was dead!!!!!!! I frantically filled the little bottle she had instructed me to use for the baskets and liberally watered the dry, beyond droopy plant. The water just came shot out of the bottom of the basket. It was official, I had murdered yet another plant. Yes we’d had an awful lot of sunshine that week and no, it hadn’t rained, but I had followed my mothers instructions to the letter. In hindsight, I should have gone round more often to feed the desperately thirsty plants. I now how to explain to my mother that I had murdered one of her beloved plants 😦
On Sunday my parents returned home and after removing the ‘dead’ plant for its basket and placing it overnight, in a bucket of water, the pretty yellow plant came back to life 🙂 Hallelujah, I’m not a botanical murderer after all 🙂