Finding Your Green Thumb

I was asked not so long ago what the term green thumb meant to me.  And it made me think about the beauty of my plants when I bring the ones I can indoors for the winter. What I think is that if you want to be a gardener, if you want to have a “green thumb” you have to feel compassion for your plants.

Because here’s the deal, plants need love too. Sure they need water and sunlight but they also need love and synergy that you are there to take care of them. That you WANT to take care of them not as a chore but as a labor of love.

Several years ago in an unexpected turn of events, we added a sunroom to our house. As it happens in life a little thing got bigger and bigger and suddenly I had a 3 season room for my house that would allow me to bring in many of my potted plants for the winter.

What a change this was! Suddenly I had flowers blooming indoors all winter long. And let me tell you there is nothing quite like a beautiful flower up against a window with snow on the ground outside.

Plants are I must say just groovy little creatures that change every single day. Some days they are pissed off because you forgot to water them and some days they sprout a flower you never expected.

Recently I had a plant that I have had for about 8 years or more bloom the most beautiful flower. I had picked it up at the Denver Botanical Gardens spring sale and it has been the most temperamental plant ever. But something made me keep it and then finally it was all worthwhile when these amazing flowers came to life…

Now I have no idea what the name of this plant is and my gardening friends on and offline had no idea either.

A green thumb without a doubt requires patience and something else… hope. Perhaps even the one more really important element to hold onto is belief. I can’t tell you how many times over all the years I have gardened when I was ready to give up on a plant both inside and out when boom it showed me its stuff and all that it was meant to be.

Those moments my friends are powerful. Those moments are magical and give you fuel for carrying on.

I will leave you today with these words from Liberty Hyde Bailey, an American Horticulturist, and Botanist who said,  “A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.”