My plants and my parents

[C0ckney]

i thought this thread was going to be more like 'dudes my parents found my plants and...' when i read the title

[Heresson]

OK. My cactus is dead. I asked my parents to care for it and at least take a picture of it if it's dead. I've been asking about it in some phone calls and my mother told me it's OK, but as I surmised, she didn't know which cactus I mean and didn't want to check. Eventually it turned out that it died and has been thrown away.

[Cruddy]

OK, sorry for my earlier comments about your story being unreadable.

It's quite sad, but I think I can offer a ray of hope... in that all things die, but it's how they lived that really matters.

You gave your plants love, attention and care. You gave them an excellent life. It is not your fault they aren't part of your life... but remember this...

If the plants went to a landfill site, and perhaps some were in seed, then your plants will live again.

So don't be too sad... and don't be TOO attached to the living things in your life. All fades and dies, but thankfully there is new life.

And, when you get you own place, your old man is going to HATE being bossed around... so at least you have that to look forward to.

My blessings on your horticultural endeavours... and don't give up loving.

[East Street Trader]

I am hopeless with plants.

On one occasion I borrowed a flat (it was during a university vacation) and I was asked to look after some cacti by giving them an occasional feed of Bio something or other.

Anyway this stuff was in a small bottle kept right next to the cacti and each time I passed, mindful of my instructions, I would put some of the stuff in the pots.

Well the cacti commenced to start looking sad. Indeed after a while they started looking mortally wounded rather than just sad.

Well I couldn't face looking at these poor things in their reduced state having no idea what I could say to the owner on his return. And I dumped them on compost heap in the grounds outside the block of flats.

Nothing got said when my friends returned but after a while I heard tell that I my rep as being a touch eccentric had been enhanced. And on making enquiries I discovered that no sooner had my friends noticed the absense of the cacti than they discovered them - hale and hearty - on the compost heap.

Whereupon it dawned on me that what had ailed the poor things while in my care was massive overdoses of the Bio something or other. Seemingly you give them one drop of this stuff every couple of weeks not, as I had been doing, a goodly dollop every few hours. Removed from the malign influence of me and the Bio stuff the cacti had promptly revived.

But of course from my friends point of view it looked as though I had just thrown their cacti out for no reason whatsoever.

Happily having a reputation as half crazed did you no harm at that time. Indeed it was pretty much required.

But I have studiously avoided taking responsibility for anything with a greenish hue ever since.

[Heresson]

Sorry, but actually I found this story funny.

[Bereta_Eder]

There are annual flower exhibitions in Kifissia north of Athens and my auntie used to take me there when I was a kid. Of course I was so horrible with plants I only wanted a cactus 'cause it would be easy to maintain. Which means water it whenever I remembered. Amazingly enough one of them managed to survive without me watering for months at an end as I remember. I also didn't change the pot when it got larger which resulted in the cactus being evolved into some kind of long spiky phallic symbol of some ancient cult on the balcony.