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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Waiting to solve my garden's mystery

I am a wannabe gardener. I have grand visions of a beautiful garden, but alas, my thumb is a brownish-yellow. Which means my plants are either dead(ish) or not very healthy. I also have not figured out the whole annual/perennial thing. I know what those terms mean, but I can't get them to cooperate in my garden. Last year's petunias are coming back. My hostas- dead.

The great mystery plant
And then there is this mighty creation. When I was cleaning out the flowerbeds and asking hubby's opinion about the one I was going to turn into an herb garden, he spotted this plant and said, "you gonna pull that weed?"

"Weed?!" I immediately went to protect the sweet little plant from his shovel. You see, last year was the final year I gave starting seeds indoors my valiant effort. I have finally come to accept the fact that my house does  not get enough light to start anything indoors without using a grow light, which I do not have. Anyway, during that last beautiful effort, my daughter accidentally messed up my plant labels. Most of the plants were easy to figure out. But this beauty... I could not figure out which plant it was. So it became my experiment plant. Out of seven, it was the lone transplant survivor. But this is all it grew into. At one point, I'd convinced myself that it was a melon plant, since I finally figured out that the seeds in that area were all mostly pumpkins and melons. But nothing ever grew out of the plant.

And here we are, a year later, after a cold winter, and this sweet little plant is still alive. I also still have no idea what it is. But how can I get rid of such a marvelous creation? It survived the poor light in my house. It survived the shock of being transplanted. It survived winter. It even survived being in the unfortunate location of the other side of the fence where the neighbor dogs pee.

So no, I am not digging up this plant.

Though maybe it really is a weed.

I'm sure there is a great lesson in all of this, probably that I'm just as stubborn as this silly plant. But I believe, just like my plant, that eventually, we'll see something good growing out of my hard word. (I know someone's going to get on and identify it as a weed, totally ruining my illustration. But for now, it's a beautiful plant!)

Do you have a "plant" that you're waiting to see fruit come from?

(And hey, if you know what my plant is, you can tell me. Really. I won't be mad if it's a weed. Please, don't be a weed!)

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