A hanging pot swayed from a hook I placed outside my bathroom window.
The key to gardening is mastering the delicate balance between the vessel, the flora, and the sun. Some plants make it easy work, surviving, often thriving, as the result of neglect. Others require you to bleed for the sweet, vibrant reward they tease, only offering up their bounty when you get it just right. For these voracious vivacious vegetation a gardener will go to war. As one would have it, this one did.
I’ve been trying to grow something pretty outside my bathroom window. My every attempt consistently met with tragedy. The first flowers I picked got too much sun. They drooped, then they shriveled, before they dropped. The second flower I picked got too much shade. They too drooped and dropped.
A hanging pot swayed from a hook I placed outside my bathroom window.
Not one to be deterred from finding the perfect flower for the perfect spot, I discriminately picked a third, the Flaming Katy, her name alone implied a residence weaker pansies couldn’t dream of possessing. Flaming Katy preens for morning rays and midday drinks. Her vibrant pink blooms spill over the edge, dripping from deep green waxy stems. Seeing Flaming Katy every morning outside my bathroom window makes me smile.
A hanging pot swayed from a hook I placed outside my bathroom window.
Katy and I settle into our delicate rhythm. I make time every day to care for her. Katy blooms so big and so bright it feels like she’s been here all along. I lose grip on the image of the cold cement patio it was before Flaming Katy. The dead commune nearby, a mausoleum of my failures—the lifeless corolla the only signs remaining. Until one Saturday morning when I spot with horror a tapestry of decay, where lifeless fragments of pink clung to bare soil below their pot, merely a whisper of their former vibrant selves.
A hanging pot swayed from a hook I placed outside my bathroom window.
Early one morning, earlier than usual, I looked through dense grey fog to see a portly, rotund, rodent sitting in the middle of my hanging pot with the smug satisfaction of a hedge fund manager named Chad. Narrowly a handful of Flaming Katy remained, death by furry parkour ninja—Sciurus Carolinensis—the common grey squirrel.
A hanging pot swayed from a hook I placed outside my bathroom window.
In the end I was no match for a rodent who knew parkour. We’re both pretending to be surprised. I say good bye to the last few blooms of my once vibrant Flaming Katy, who now retreats to safer ground in attempt to escape Parkour Chad. I resign. A picnic table, with a seat for Chad, now protrudes from where
A hanging pot swayed from a hook I placed outside my bathroom window.
The rest of the season passes amicably. The oaks leaves start to turn to rust as cool mornings set in. In the afternoon I work, cutting dead flowers, trimming leggy branches, and covering delicate roots for a harsh winter chill. In the once bare soil below Chad’s picnic table where the pot once swayed, I peek a vibrant pink petal tipped on deep green waxed stems—spreading wide, reaching, striving, determined—Flaming Katy made it after all.
Chad, as it turns out, had diversified. In every outdoor pot I so carefully tend, he’s been hiding nuts. I bring the pots inside for winter, protecting my delicate flora from the cold, providing the portly opportunist’s portfolio with a place to mature. Come spring, oak trees are growing all over my house.
