This blog is about the first time blooming of my Hoya plant. Nature makes such beautiful perfect things. The blossoms look like they are made from wax. The blog is about how I became involved with growing plants as well.
NOTE: I have written things that some may find uncomfortable. I cannot help that since so much is tied to those things and it is part of what has made me who I am. To leave out this would be like lying. Also, if you have the time, please subscribe and like. It will help my blog grow. 🙂 🙂
There are a few people who have known me for at least 75% of my life. If you asked them to say one thing about me what would it be? Kathy has a green thumb. That would be a true statement too. It’s my superpower. When I was eleven our parents took us to Georgia to see my dad’s sister. It was the only time I had met her. In that very short time as an eleven-year-old, the first thing I noticed was all her beautiful plants and she had a beautiful afghan on her sofa. All I remember saying is, “I sure wish I could grow those kinds of plants and also learn how to crochet.” My Auntie Lena sat down and showed me some basic crocheted stitches and made sure I could do them. She gave me a ball of yarn and a crochet hook. I still have that crochet hook to this day. The hook has been in my possession for 50 years!
The other thing she did was take me outside to see her plants. She took some clippings from a really colorful coleus, put the stems in a wet paper towel, and then that was put into a bag so that it could stay moist. She told me how to plant them when I got home. I planted them and nurtured them and that was when I realized I loved plants. Before I knew it, the number of ornamental plants had grown in numbers, We were living in Christmas Florida then so when my parents decided to sell their place and move us to North Florida, I literally shoved as many potted plants as I could get away with into the U-Haul truck after all our belongings had been loaded.
I couldn’t leave them. I loved them so much and they brought me such peace and happiness. Growing plants because an escape that helped me cope with all the bad things that were going on in my life during my adolescent – and teenage years. We moved to North Florida and from there my plant growing grew even larger.
When I was fourteen I had a part-time job working at a cactus nursery. I learned so much from the owner of that nursery. I learned about all different types of cactus and we had a neighbor who was going to Lake City Community College to study Landscape Design. He had seen my plant collection outside in our yard and that is when he started mentoring me too. Before I knew it, I had around 300 different species of plants & cactus. One day my father being the mean ass that he was decided to come out and inform me that I had a week to get rid of every last one of them. He told me that I loved my plants more than God, and our family and that I was to give them up. If I didn’t he would burn them all.
I felt like something inside me was dying as I gave them away to people who I knew loved them. My father literally squashed something I was good at in a matter of days and he didn’t care that he had caused more damage that day than a lot of what he had already done.
About a year later the man across the street who had been mentoring me, teaching me all I could soak up about plants even though I wasn’t allowed any plants, came to our house. He spoke to my parents and he told them that I was gifted and he couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to have them. He told my parents he had graduated from the program and he wanted to give me one plant to remember him by. He asked my father to allow that one plant. Strangely enough, my dad told him okay.
When we moved to a different house, I still had that one plant. It was a ponytail. I ended up with more plants again and for whatever reason my father allowed me to have a greenhouse in the backyard and that was where I kept a fairly good-sized collection by the time I graduated from high school. I practically lived in it, (not really) but I spent a lot of time out there tending to them, and talking to them. It was such a place to escape reality for a while.
I had decided I wanted to go to college and sign up for the Landscape Design course that was offered out there. That didn’t sit well with my dad. No girl should be in that type of program especially because of the religion our parents made us a part of. He was really making it hard to continue to live under their roof as an almost 19-year-old. The greenhouse kept me there but one day I realized I couldn’t continue to live in the atmosphere that I was living in. I tried to take what plants I could and had to leave the rest. They all died in a hard freeze during the late winter when I had left. I still had that ONE plant given to me. I had taken it with me. (Pony Tail) I had the Ponytail up until 12 years ago when I moved to Greenland. It was 38 years old when I gave it to a friend who lived in South Florida.
A lot of things happened after I left home that got in the way of trying to get a degree in Landscape Design. I eventually earned an Associate of Arts Degree in Landscape Technology along with an Associate of Arts degree in Fine Arts. I wanted to continue to a four-year degree but again life got in the way with things happening beyond my control.
I’ve been through a lot over the years but my love of plants has not stopped. Even though I live in Greenland, I still have plants. I don’t have the numbers I had in Florida but what I do have I’m so very thankful for. I wrote about all this today because the one Hoya I have left that hadn’t died while I was stuck in California last year has finally produced a peduncle that now has a cluster of very tiny blossoms. They are so beautiful! I’m so happy to see this has happened. I decided to write about this, only it seems I got off to a strange start in my writing by talking about my childhood and how I came about being a Master Gardener. So down below there is going to be some salty writing about why humans find the need to change what nature creates so beautifully.
Look at the picture of the Hoya blossom. Look how perfect it is! Nature gives us such beautiful plants and animals and sunsets and icebergs and many other things and yet humans find the need to turn them into something else. Why? Are humans that superficial?
Okay, be forewarned because now the writing is going to go down a different path and subject.
I think I have to write about this because there are many less plant-savvy people out there in our world. Not by any fault of their own.
The last couple of times I went home to see my adult children and their children I noticed in Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowe’s that the cactus they were selling had what looked like flowers on them! I have also seen them in Denmark and now here in Greenland.
The flowers are fake, the the producers who grow and sell the cactus injure the cactus with this method of hoping that their decorations will help sell the cactus faster or sell more of it! I’ve also seen cactus totally covered in paint.
First off injuring a cactus is bad enough. But to put those out on the market to sell to unsuspecting people who don’t realize that those injuries could cause rot on the cactus. So basically the cactus are being sold as if they are disposable! There is no fine print on the label stating “This cactus might die due to wounds inflicted by humans who are stupid enough to put the fake crap on them in order to sell them for a higher price and more of them!
It’s ridiculous that we as humans can’t be satisfied with what nature gives us without primping them up to make them more ideal for the human eye. Eye Candy!
I would not spend one penny on any of the cactus just for that reason because why would I want to pay a high price for a cactus that has been compromised? Why do people buy them like this? Do they not understand that it’s fake?
I bought what I thought was a Bird of Paradise plant in Flower. I didn’t think to touch the flower when I bought it. I had that damn plant an entire year and I kept thinking, how it is possible for it to bloom for months on end while the plant hardly grew at all. One day I decided I would look at the root ball so I was trying to be careful not to damage the flower when I turned the plant upside down to remove the pot. The damn flower fell out and that is when I discovered it was a freaking FAKE!!!
It would be nice if none of us spent money on what is done to these plants in order to sell them. The producers are ripping people off!
Living Greenland
Living Greenland 