What Color Is Your Thumb? 07.13.16

It’s true that I probably spend more time with plants than I do with people, but lest you mock me for it consider this: I have yet to encounter a judgmental mountain laurel or passive aggressive Japanese boxwood. The peace lily in the pot by the living room window doesn’t suggest that it might be past time for me to get my back waxed when I’m walking around the house shirtless and the philodendron on the kitchen windowsill doesn’t question my life choices and if I’m really going to eat an entire sleeve of thin mint Girl Scout cookies by myself in one sitting. No, I don’t talk to my plants (I don’t want to bore them to death) and I don’t give them names, yet many of them have a subtle impact on my daily life in ways that you might not imagine.

I come by my green thumb naturally; both my mother and father were inveterate gardeners. So many of the plants in my yard got their start from the home that I grew up in in Corpus Christi. The sago palm that’s preparing to put on a new set of fronds right now is a “pup” from the one that I bought with my father over 50 years ago at Currie Seed Co. The mountain laurel next to my driveway was raised from a bright red seed that came from one that itself was planted from a seed that my father found somewhere. The asparagus fern that fills up an entire corner of my yard came from a forgotten corner at 521 Catalina. And the Mexican petunia that I’m constantly pulling up and throwing away came from there as well. I’m not sure whether to thank them for that last one or not.

I also have plants that have been given to me by friends and acquaintances over the years that remind me of them on a daily basis. The Chinese evergreen in the brass planter on the cocktail table in my living room is a descendant of one that was sent after my father passed away in 1982 by Ann Thames and the folks who I worked with at Dobie dormitory.

The angel wing begonia pictured below came from a cutting that Lesley Woods gave me 30 years ago after admiring the one she had on her patio. Here several years ago I forgot to bring it in before a hard freeze and it died back completely. I thought it was a goner and as I prepared to dump the pot in the Spring to make way for a new plant I noticed the tiniest of leaves emerging from the soil.

I have several pots of Rhapis Palms all of which came from one of my mother’s most prized plants. It was given to her by her dearest friend Ann, Margaret Ann Major Cleaves’ mother and David Cleaves’ and Kim Cleves Huett’s grandmother. It was delivered by the Blossom Shop one afternoon with a card that read, “Just Because. Love, Ann”. That perfectly encapsulated what a truly lovely person she was and I think about her and “just because” often when I view those palms from my kitchen window.

I have an impressive stand of aspidistra (cast iron plant) running the length of the back fence that was courtesy of Mark Krenek though he probably doesn’t know it. It was Rusty Barfield who harvested the original plants from the quaint little house in Old West Austin that Mark was living in at the time.

I have snow bells come up every Winter that are the first harbingers of Spring that Cheryl Wilson gave me (for some reason I feel compelled to send her a picture when they start blooming.)

I have old school flag irises that I dug up out of my aunt’s yard in San Antonio after she passed away in 1993 and I have a pot of English ivy growing at the base of the fountain on my patio that Dona Wheeler Roman bought to brighten up her mother’s hospital room and that she gave to me upon her passing a few days later.

For something that can’t speak, all these plants have a story to tell. So to all of you who I’ve shared plants with, I hope they’ve brought a little bit of enjoyment and beauty to your lives. And if they remind you of me that’s great too. Unless I owe you money.