Don't Abandon Your Plants

This may sound strange, but in middle school, me and a friend had a fort in a nearby cemetery. You may question our choice of locations, but it was the only place near our house that wasn't houses. There were bushes and trees and cool places to explore that we could pretend were wilderness. 

They have since cleared out most of the bushes and trees, which sucks (they also blocked off our secret entrances). But I still go up to visit four graves.

Anyway, this is leading up to the topic of my post. Me and my friend would sometimes find potted plants that people had thrown in the trash. We would rescue those plants and take them back home for rehabilitation. 

To this day, I will rescue plants that I find in distress. 

So when my mom buys orchids, and then throws them away when they're done blooming, I get upset.

Several years ago, my aunt bought me a little anthurium with little purple flowers. When you buy these potted plants, they're usually covered in blossoms. I imagine they use greenhouses and some cocktail of chemicals to get that many blooms out of them. When it finished blooming, it didn't get flowers for a few years. But all that time, it lived in my room, along with a few other potted plants. I have a mini jungle on top of my printer.

Then last year, I started researching ways to get them to bloom again. It mentioned something about the time of year, so I decided to wait until then. Weeks later, it got a flower! I was thrilled. And ever since then, when one flower falls, another shortly takes its place. 

Here's the current flower. 

I feel bad for all the plants that get trashed, because people weren't patient enough to wait for them. 

A second example. Earlier this year, I bought one of those beautiful, yet cheap, chrysanthemums for Lunar new year. It bloomed, and then the flowers browned and the leaves started to die. But I noticed new leaves popping up around the base of the stalk, so I repotted it and moved it to the backyard. 

A couple months later, it started getting buds followed by about 20 beautiful blooms. It looked far better than when I'd bought it. 

I should have taken a photo. All the flowers are done now, except for a couple that are on the way out. Maybe it will come back for me again next year! 

Magellenic penguins in the middle of their annual molt. Look at that pile of feathers!