Phantom Green Thumbs

Every spring I feel the uncontrollable urge to try to grow things. I load up my sticky-fingered toddlers and wander around the aisles of greenhouses, and even through the gardening section at Wal-mart. I buy silly little gardening gloves, small spades, potting soil, pots and seeds, plants or bulbs. Considering my history, this is all ridiculously naive. It must be spring that's to blame.

I think God placed the desire to grow things in our genetic makeup as human beings, and this desire blooms right along with the rest of nature, in the spring. We just seem to know that the soil is for bringing forth new life, and we want to watch and be a part of that miracle. Unfortunately, the desire to grow things is as far as it got when God knit me together in my mother's womb. He, for mischievous reasons of His own, no doubt, decided not to give me the ability to make anything grow.

Last spring, for instance, I bought several herb seedlings and some cute pots and a nice little purple pair of gardening gloves. What else should I need? However, in no time at all they were withered, pathetic ghosts of the flourishing plants they had promised to be. One year my husband bought me a Christmas cactus that had lots and lots of buds, almost ready to open. The poor, sweet, naive man thought that I couldn't really mess up a plant that was only moments away from blooming and didn't need much water. Nope. Wrong. Try again next year, Babe. Not a single bloom opened. Not one. Every last bud fell off of its branch and burrowed down into the soil to try a new life as compost. I thought as a woman I was supposed to intuitively know how to make things grow. Nurturing and nourishing are supposed to be in my blood. What happened?

Even with this sordid and painful history, I stubbornly, stupidly, try to grow plants every spring. Today I bought some Hosta bulbs for the backyard of my new home, and some Hyacinth plants for my front porch. I know, I know, it can only end in tragedy and blame, but hey, it's spring. I can't stop myself.

If you've got a post of your own about growing (or your lack thereof) check out scribbit's April Write-Away Competition.