Mornings and My Pathetic Green Thumb

Lately my favorite morning routine has been coming back from a run and sitting on my balcony with a cold glass of water. I'm doing that right now. I still have my ipod on (I've heard Interpol, Nick Drake, Elliot Smith, and Christina Aguilera--in that order--since I've been out here. I love it) and I just sit, look around, let my heart rate calm, and feel my sweat dry. I seldom don't feel as relaxed or as peaceful as I do now.

Of the many things I enjoy about my balcony time, I most enjoy monitoring my outdoor balcony plants. I only have four of them--a dahlia, a Christmas cactus, a tomato plant, and another succulents. They are my babies and I like to chart their progress.

I know NOTHING about growing things and harbor some bit of stress about this...am I watering them enough? What do droopy leaves mean? Did I re-pot it correctly? Is it getting enough light? How ofter do I fertilize? Is Miracle Gro cheating? Etc. I am a By-the-Book type of girl and when I don't have something telling me exactly what to do and when, I teeter.

Let me tell you the story of my dahlia. My friend gave it to me right before I got married. It was tall and beautiful and had giant dinner plate yellow flowers blooming. They were spectacular and I had never had anything like it. About six weeks ago, I realized that blossoms weren't ever blooming and leaves were browning. I began watering it more but that didn't work. I then closely examined the plant and saw teeny tiny brown bugs all over it, spinning webs and everything. Agh!

An internet investigation taught me they were spider mites. Bastards. I hate them. Did I invite them over? No. So I went to the local nursery and got this pesticide spray and sprayed the hec out of those spider mites for weeks and it still didn't help.

How do I know? Because this is what it looked like:

Look how sad it is!! So pathetic. But I noticed that the stalks were still green and that there were new little leaves at the base. So I decided to cut off all the leaves. And now, it looks like this:


Waaaa! I'm so sorry dahlia! I felt like a bad mommy when I did that. The extreme pruning was actually a couple weeks ago. Several leaves have grown back and it looks promising. But who knows. I still spray the spider mite stuff on it and notice that some leaves are brown and wilty. Grr. I am not convinced that it will ever be the beautiful plant it was. I am trying so hard to keep that sucker alive! Hopefully by the time we get a house with a yard I'll have learned a few tricks to keep my plants thriving.