Wife’s absence could plant the seeds for disaster

Now that she’s had her COVID shots, my wife has left for a long-delayed visit with her grandson in Oregon. She’ll be gone for a week, which is the longest she’s ever left me home alone.

I’m not worried about taking care of myself, though. I’m not one of those clueless husbands who can’t survive for more than three days without a wife to keep the household running smoothly. I can shop for my own groceries, cook my own meals without setting off the smoke alarm and operate a washing machine without causing a flood. So I’ll be fine.

Which is more than

I can guarantee for her houseplants.

Her houseplants live in pots on virtually every flat surface in our house, and before she left, she gave me detailed instructions about their care and feeding. It wasn’t a simple matter of watering them. The Pilea peperomioides, she said, needed to be moved every morning into a location where they would get plenty of sunlight. The Phalaenopsis needed to be watered with a special solution from a jug she keeps in the garage. Or maybe it was the other way around. Not only do I not know the difference between a Pilea peperomioides and a Phalaenopsis,

I can’t pronounce either of them.

But then, houseplants and I don’t have much of a history, mostly because I don’t understand the point of growing things I can’t eat or, possibly, smoke. Before we were married, a friend gave me a cactus, which is something I’m pretty sure can sit around in a desert for a couple of decades without water. I killed that baby in a little over two weeks.

But I’ll do my best to keep my wife’s houseplants healthy because I know nurturing Mother

Nature is important to her.

For the past six months she’s been Zooming for hours on her laptop with her fellow garden club members. I don’t understand how they can spend that much time talking about petunias, or whatever it is that garden club members talk about. Although, to be fair, she can’t understand how I can spend three hours in front of the television watching a replay of a college football game that happened four years ago.

Between now and October, she’ll spend most of every day in the yard seeding, weeding, transplanting and watering. My approach to horticulture is to buy a half-grown tomato plant at the nearest garden center, stick it in the ground and hope for the best.

So I appreciate the confidence in me she’s shown by leaving her precious houseplants in my care. Even though I’m pretty sure it’s only because she couldn’t fit them in her suitcase.