The Blighted Landscape of My Life

I find myself mourning the loss of my tiny, stunted ficus. It's not that it was a happy, robust plant. It's just that it had, against all odds, managed to survive life with me for eight long years. Sometimes with only one lonely leaf clinging stubbornly to a brittle branch, yet it lingered. It deserved better thanks for its dogged determination. I can at least be comforted that it was happy in its final weeks. It had put out almost thirty five vivid green and white leaves in the last two months. Yes, I counted them. I felt the need to salute the loss of the sole survivor of my black thumb.

Laughing Boy, on the other hand, can just look at a plant and it grows extra branches. He is surprised, for good reason, when one of his plants doesn't make it. The first time I went to plunk down $10 on a "Color Bowl" of annuals at the garden center, he stopped me.

"But that's only going to last a few weeks."

I blinked at him in confusion. "And?"

"Well, don't you want to buy something that will last longer?"

He has come to understand, with bitter resignation, my slightly guilty/hysterical giggling at that question.

Banana Dog, selecting a victim

The plants in this picture are not the ones that Banana has slaughtered (yet), but you can tell that these have not had an easy time of it either. Laughing Boy constantly nurses them back from the brink in between my random acts of kindness (aka erratic overwatering and/or neglect).

And now, in spite of all Laughing Boy's hard work, Banana Dog is carrying on my legacy. I'm not sure how I will break the news.