Good Soil

Last October, in my post on change and the wind, I mentioned a little umbrella tree that I have in a pot on my balcony. For over a year it has survived without growing an inch. I would water it regularly and turn it occasionally so that it could catch the sun from a different angle, but it never changed. Neither growing nor dying, it merely survived.

A former music teacher of mine had a mantra – a quote from Einstein that she loved repeating to her particularly stubborn students:

So, after a year of gardening insanity, I decided to do something different – change the soil. Two Saturdays ago I went to a gardening shop and bought three new plants, new potting soil, and a small bag of organic fertilizer. With the help of Wycliff (the caretaker/gardener at my apartment complex) we re-potted the old plants in new soil and put the new plants into the empty pots.

Two weeks later, all of the plants are flourishing. The mint has exploded, filling it’s pot to overflowing, and there will soon be blooms on the geraniums and elephant ears. Best of all – the little umbrella tree is pushing out new leaves! It wasn’t too traumatized by the pot change. In fact, nourishment from good soil was all it needed.

I love life lessons from the garden.