My Little Orphan Plant Project

I’m overstating it a little bit, but for the second time in as many months I found myself browsing through the reject tropical plant rack at another local hardware superstore and filling an handbasket with a motley assortment of discount greenery to bring home.

Yesterday I came home with (another) six potted indoor plants, all on death’s doorstep from a season of rejection and neglect, all steeply discounted to literal cents likely because the seasonal holiday replacements need the shelf space.

A fern. A couple palms. An indoor rose. And a couple other interesting leafy explosions that were encased in root balls of dirt so dried out that even the trash bin may have questioned their existence.

I feel a bit sorry for plants like this.

Not that plants have feelings.

Not that I haven’t neglected and doomed my share of indoor foliage over the years.

Rather, because it seems a bit like a charity project, albeit a small and ultimately self-serving one, to save a few of these dregs of the greenhouse from final obliteration and see if I can’t coax some life back into them and potentially give each a new home in mine.

If they die, aw shucks and a few bucks.

If they live and thrive, I have a new houseplant on the cheap.

In short, in the last two months I’ve added at least a dozen listless but leafy loafers to my weekly watering schedule and sparked something of a small project into the notion of filling the house with a bit more organic décor. I don’t know if it’ll be worth revisiting here on the blog, but like anything greenish, with a little sunshine and water and almost anything can happen.