Let’s Begin

 

Anthurium carlablackiae from NSE Tropicals

If we are lucky, there are many love stories in our lives. The people we love, pets, hobbies, making art, and our calling. I’ve never felt a calling to one thing, it’s always been to everything. To me, life is a buffet to be sampled. In my outdoor garden, I want to grow everything: to try all of the plants. And I know that I’m doing a good job because nursery owners know my name and are always happy to see me (and my credit card).

For this reason, I’ve always envied gardeners that loved a specific genus of plants. I ask them to give me a blow by blow of how they fell in love with their favorite plants. I watch their eyes go misty as they detail the first clematis they purchased with the wrong plant tag and how that led to a nationally accredited display garden. And I hang on every word. Every damn time.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve wished for my favorite genus to finally reveal itself to me, to feel the pull and fascination towards one type of plants. I have searched and searched, hoping that the next plant would be the one. I’ve gone to great ends to find it.

I volunteered for many years as a master gardener, trained master gardeners, taught gardening classes for the community college’s community education program, garden coached, wrote several different garden blogs, and won different awards. None of it leading to my dream genus.

No, it took a surgeon seriously looking into my eyes and warning me that I had an internal injury (from gardening) that could kill me at any time and that lifting over 15 pounds would definitely kill me. “You shouldn’t be alive right now,” he said confidently. 

I hated him immediately, but also believed him. And so, I’ve been working through my What I Want To Do, Just In Case I die List, as I lose the necessary weight before my repair surgery this winter. Yes, the surgeon scared me and put me on a diet; we will never be friends. 

With the fifteen pound lifting limit and the political nightmare that took over this country, I turned to indoor container gardening. And that little red blooming IKEA anthurium was a gateway plant that has  changed my life. I tried looking up a book on anthurium care at the library and found, Welcome to the Jungle by Enid Offolter.  

And here I sit, writing to you 10 months later, with 95 anthurium species in my collection. I found my genus! It happened for me. My wish finally came true. This blog is my love letter to anthuriums and the journey to successfully select, purchase, and grow them. There are over 1000 species, so I’m going to be busy growing them for a long time. Let’s begin.