My Chartreuse Thumb

Some people have a knack for growing things. My husband’s granddaddy for example: he could take a cutting of anything, stick it in some potting medium, and plop it into his greenhouse. The next thing I knew, there was an azalea, a rhododendron, or a rose bush. I remember when I was pregnant and fretting with anxiety about keeping a human baby alive, he said, “Children are like plants; give them food, water, and sunshine and they’re sure to thrive.”

If only it were that simple, I thought.  Now I wonder if he was right. (I do have a tendency to complicate things.)

I managed to keep my human children alive to adulthood, but with plants I alternate between overabundant care and benign neglect. I surge into the garden with all the food, water, and love my green babies could dream of each spring, then slide back into the oblivion of an overly busy life to walk by those same plants weeks later, not a moment to spare them.

On retirement I decide to alter that disparity and become a real gardener. I enroll myself in the Rutger’s Master Gardener Program. Surely gaining such a title will produce enough chlorophyl to turn my thumb a lovely verde. I apply all my erudite powers to the effort, taking extensive notes in class, completing my homework early, acing every test.

During pruning and propagation lessons, I sit at the feet of a true garden genius, the owner of Fernbrook Nurseries. He hacks at a viburnum and gives me the leavings to take home and propagate. I suspect he and Granddaddy share some special gardening DNA that’s beyond me. When I pepper him with questions about how to make my stems grow, he grabs my hand to examine my right thumb. “What color is this thing, anyway?”

I laugh at his honesty and answer, “Sort of a sickly color, eh?” My viburnum cuttings fail soon after. Yet I don’t quit.

Each Wednesday morning, I turn up at a county park where twenty or so Master Gardeners tend plots of pollinator plants.  I set out to learn all I can in hopes their skill sets can be duplicated. The border I’m assigned, along with two other interns, are overgrown from years of neglect. We spend month after month identifying what should stay, ripping out invasive species, and introducing new host plants. Armed with a slew of identification apps, I carefully inspect each shoot of green. After years of effort, we actually need to thin some of our plants. I am sent home with bee balm, mountain mint, cat mint, a stray iris, and a volunteer crepe myrtle. I find a sunny patch in my yard and settle the newcomers into the soil. They go to town! Perhaps my thumb isn’t hueless after all.

Working through the beds along my front porch, I come upon a little compact fuzzy weed I’m unfamiliar with. It’s not the usual wild strawberry, native geranium, or creeping Charlie I’ve been ripping out. “What’s this?” A closer inspection reveals two spiky caterpillars munching down its leaves. I employ one of my many identification apps and learn I’m growing rabbit tobacco, a primary larval host plant for the American Lady Butterfly!

Can you find the caterpillars?

The next day at the butterfly garden, I proudly approach each plot with pictures to share. The “oohs and ahs” at my little caterpillar babies renew hope that someday I’ll be a contributor and not a wanna-be. Even our native plant expert shows interest in my discovery—a possible backup to pussytoes for our American Ladies.

I can’t add a notch on my wheelbarrow for leaving a weed alone. However, the curiosity to look closely might be a baby step toward true garden mastery. Food, water, sunshine—we all should be regularly baptized in nature—sure to thrive, or at least growing like weeds.

Your Turn: What color is your thumb? Do you come by it genetically or by training?