Wednesday, 24 June 2009

• When a plant is to be on its way out.

  "It doesn't look like that plant over there made it,"  I hear almost the moment I walked into one of my accounts Monday, an account I actually go to twice a week just for their bloom rotation! 

  I've also gotten the panic-inducing voicemail:  "Laura, your brand-new account called to say their orchid completely died...and they keep calling."

  So I look towards the "dead" plant or worse, race across town to the office, only to find that the bloom or orchid isn't dead but has merely entered into the next phase of its bloom cycle. 

  I hate this belief that a plant is "dead" merely because it isn't flowering.  It's right up there with my other customer-pet peeve when people call my plants "flowers".   Because there's a difference you know...one I thought was adequately covered in Kindergarten. 

  But back to the blooms.  Can't people see that if the leaves are still green and erect the plant is obviously not dead?  Don't they realize that very many plants require a resting period?  Or that producing flowers takes a lot of energy?  I understand when a paying customer is unhappy when petals start dropping onto her desk, but can't people just call a thing what it is?  And in the case of the bloom, couldn't they look closer between the leaves...to see perhaps the forming buds?

  "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any.   So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any.  Cut it down!  Why should it use up the soil?' 
  "'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it.  If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.'"  Luke 13:6-9, NIV

  I like to think that the God who created us understands that we occasionally need a bit of recuperation, but like my customers, there is a point that flowers are what is required of us, and if there are no flowers...

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