Flowers killed off despite loving attention

For Moose Jaw Express

- gers that have plagued my attempts at houseplant nur-

have hit again this summer with a wallop that was totally unexpected.

When the tulips came up in

and then produced shriveled buds and few blossoms, that should have been a sign

warmed.

The tulips were not helped at all by the pesky squirrels who insisted on leaving me peanuts while they raided and made off with the bulbs that might have resulted in blooms on a year-after-year basis. Squirrel-lovers suggest it might have been dogs or cats to blame but there aren’t that many peanut-loving dogs or cats in the neighborhood.

perhaps because there was no proper snow cover and the ground was colder than usual. Across the driveway the lilies in Housemate’s patch came up and grew tall and bloomed, almost waving their blossoms It was a combination of poor tulip luck and no regrowth of lilies added to an aching back that convinced me to simply go to the garden centres to buy hanging baskets and planters with plants already planted, with blossoms in place.

The manual labour of this endeavour was simply pulling out the credit card to pay for my purchases and opening the trunk lid so Housemate could load them at the store then unload them in our driveway. With me pointing the way, he even plopped them where I deemed suitable locations in the front, and on the side of the house.

This style of gardening doesn’t involve the

growth enhancements, transplanting plants into their permanent containers and then moving them again to where they will thrive and stun the neighbours with their beauty.

Housemate even bought me a small watering can, one easily carried so as not to further injure my back or place pressure on my arthritic hand. Even I was

- ic.

Then one day while backing out of the drive, it was brought to my attention that my pot of multi-coloured daisies looked pretty bedraggled. My thought was they needed water and so upon returning home, I watered and waited for the blooms to resurrect themselves. The purple daisies seemed to thrive for a day. The white and yellow ones required more love than I could provide and I pronounced them dead in the ground in which they came.

Finally, the entire pot of blooms withered and died, regardless of the attention they received. I muttered about the quality of product this unsuspecting would-

soil was blamed, then it was the heat of the day and the chill of the evening.

The blackness of the thumb was not entirely made up of black ink from our leaky printer. It was a lifetime of slaughtering unsuspecting plants that thought they might be going to a forever kind of home.

It might have been forever for them if only Housemate had spirited them away to his side of the yard, where his plants are thriving. My hanging basket, I have to admit is doing well — because Housemate has taken over the care of these lovely blooms.

I bet he will even win the battle against the squirrels with a watering device not entirely devoted to water-