I swear that Kay, one of my neighbors (and by “neighbor” I mean she lives a half-mile away) could grow coconut trees in her yard, she has such a green thumb. But if a green thumb means someone is good at growing things, then I must have a brown one, because everything I try to grow eventually turns that color.
Last
year, when I was walking my dog by Kay’s house, I noticed these huge, flowering
bushes in her yard. They had so many flowers on them, I could see them two
blocks away. When I asked Kay what they were, she said rhododendrons.
I
knew I’d never be able to remember rhododendrons by the time I walked back
home, so I did what I usually do when I want to remember something – I used
word association. The first thing that popped into my mind was actress Valerie
Harper. Why? Because she played a character named Rhoda on TV for years, and I
figured if I could remember Rhoda, I could remember rhododendrons.
Although
I have a long history of killing plants, sometimes just by looking at them, I
became obsessed with having a rhododendron bush/shrub on my front lawn. As luck
would have it, I was in the garden department at Walmart one day and there was
a huge sale on bushes and shrubs.
“Do
you have any of those Valerie Harper shrubs?” I asked the clerk.
He
looked at me as if I’d just been beamed down from another planet.
“Oh!
I’m sorry,” I said. “ I mean a rhoda, um, rhododendron.”
He
led me to the selection. There were white ones and pink ones, which were nice,
but then I spotted a bright red one. It was marked down to $12 and was already
about three feet tall and in a big plastic tub.
“How
big do these things grow?” I asked the clerk.
“Oh,
they can get to be as wide as 25 feet across,” he said.
Excited,
and picturing my front lawn overrun with beautiful red rhododendron flowers, I
bought it.
The
minute I got home with my precious shrub, however, I started to have a panic
attack. I just knew I was going to kill it. No matter how kind I was to it or
how much I babied it, experience had taught me its days were numbered. Soon, it
would be brown and shriveled, gasping for its last breath, all because it had
been unlucky enough to be purchased by me, the Lizzie Borden of plant
caretakers. So I put it in the garage for the time being.
When
I told Kay I’d bought a rhododendron, she said, “Great! When you’re ready to
plant it, let me know and I’ll help you!”
I
felt much better. I knew she could grow plants and flowers that looked as if
they had jumped off the covers of landscaping magazines, while I couldn’t even
grow mold on bread, so if my rhododendron received her magic touch, it just
might receive a stay of execution and survive.
But
just as I was trying to pick out the perfect spot on my front lawn for my new
shrub, the guys arrived to install my new home-generator system.
“We’re
going to have to run a gas line from your underground propane tank to the
generator,” one of the guys said, “ so we’re going to have to dig a trench
across your lawn.”
The
next thing I knew, construction vehicles descended upon my property and my
front lawn ended up resembling the Grand Canyon – if someone had filled it with
mud. It was not a good time, I decided, to plant my precious shrub. I would
have to wait until I actually had a front yard again instead of a giant
sinkhole.
So
the rhododendron remained in its plastic tub in my garage. I watered it, I
talked to it, I begged it not to die.
And
for a month, it grew, and I got excited. Every bud, every new green leaf felt
like a personal victory to me. And as my yard finally began take shape again,
after new loam and grass seed were put down, I was counting the days until I
could call Kay and tell her the shrub was ready to be planted.
But
then something unexpected happened. The temperature outside shot up to nearly
100 degrees. That meant the temperature inside my locked-up garage was hot
enough to roast a Thanksgiving turkey.
Even worse, I’d forgotten to water the rhododendron for two days. I
should have been arrested for plant abuse.
When
I finally went out to the garage, there was my once lovely shrub, brown and
dried up. There wasn’t one green leaf left on it. Panicking, I called Kay, but
there was no answer. So I called another friend who’s also good at growing
things.
“Dig
a hole, fill it with water and plant the shrub right away,” she told me. “It
might be able to revive, if the roots are still good.”
So
I rushed out to the front yard and dug a hole, filled it with water and planted
the shrub. Then I waited for it to show any signs of life.
That
was a year ago. I’m still waiting. It’s so brown and dried-up looking, even the
squirrels point at it and laugh.
Still,
I’m seriously thinking about buying another rhododendron this year and having
Kay plant it for me…in her yard.
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