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A potted history
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Why is it when one acquires a seedling one is impatient for it to immediately grow into a strapping youth?
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SOMEONE THANKED me at a valedictory function with a potted begonia and my life hasn't been the same since. While planning the event the organisers had hit upon a 1000-watt idea. "We decided," they brightly explained, "that we would gift plants instead of flowers." A commendable gesture. You could practically hear the hurrahs from the Forest Department. But it turned out to be a beguiling trap. When you get a bouquet you dunk the flowers in a vase where they'll glow quietly for a few days before they're snuffed out, and then you can throw them out without a qualm. But you don't fling a flowerpot unless you're a character in a Wodehouse novel. A plant is a responsibility. And a pot with a dead plant is the loneliest thing.
None of this went through my head when my name was called out. I blithely stepped up to accept the begonia. Laden with white blossoms, it rested in a small, black, plastic pot. It looked quite fetching. I dreamily pictured how it would offset my grey-and-white planter (the astute reader might recall a passing reference, in a previous column, to a neglected ceramic planter filled with old plastic bags). Now I was seized with a vaulting ambition. When the chief guest (with great foresight, I now see) politely declined his bonsai, I offered to give it a home. It was shaped like a catapult with leaves resembling the head of a tennis racquet. At the apex of one upright stem was a bud and on the other, a magenta flower with five round petals, simple as a child's drawing. The nursery had tagged it. Written in block capitals on a plastic strip sticking out of the spongy black soil was the musical name Laong Thong.
During tea, reality struck. There I was, a guardian of two wards, and I had no clue how to care for them. I began to nervously shop around for helpful hints. One of the organisers said: "The bonsai is from some South East Asian country, so give it plenty of sunshine and not much water. The begonia is used to a temperate climate." And that was all I had to go on. I reached home with my hands full and my mind in a whirl. Since I had two plants but only one planter, I nipped out to buy a shallow-bottomed plastic plate — a green one, of course. I served the begonia a generous helping of H{-2}O. It raced downward and overflowed into the plate. I dribbled about a thimbleful of water at the feet of Ms. Laong Thong. It overflowed into the planter. This was the most porous soil I had ever seen. Maybe it was plain fertiliser passed off as soil.
The same night I dialled two of my friends, announcing the new arrivals and seeking advice. That's when I first heard the ominous word "re-potting". If I didn't shift them into real soil at the "appropriate time" (no specifics were given) they would die. Where would I find clay pots and red earth? I put the problem out of my mind and concentrated on supplying my wards the requisite amount of sunshine. Every day I bathed them in the morning sun from one balcony and in the evening sun from the other.
Two weeks later the begonia's flowers began dropping off in a hurry. The leaves curled up at the edges and the centre could not hold. Before you could say "be gone, ya" the begonia had ceased to be. During the post mortem, the stem oozed water when I pressed it. Verdict: death by drowning. I didn't have time to mourn its passing because my employee spiritedly informed me of an old gardener she saw on her way to work. The very next day she brought a sapling that the man had called a "gajera", which was not, as far as I knew, a plant in any language.
It boasted a yellow flower that resembled a miniature gerbera — was that it, then? The leaves were tiny, green spears that shot forth from the red mud. My partner, not exactly a pillar of support, said with a disparaging sniff: "Looks like grass."
Next, it was the bonsai's turn to sound the alarm. Leaves yellowed overnight and began to fall. My employee kept a cool head during the emergency. She got me a large pot and clayey soil, and as we transplanted Ms. Laong Thong we scattered around her roots the black stuff that contained the mortal remains of the begonia. The operation was an instant success.
Today, both my plants are looking bronzed and fit but there's no telling what the future might bring. Teenage tantrums, perhaps. What I've learnt is that a potted plant demands attention. Before you trot out that stale comparison between plants and children, let me point out one significant difference. You would never look at a newborn babe and wish it turned 17 the next day, but the moment you acquire a seedling you're impatient for it to grow into a strapping youth.
Plants call for patience. They also make you sceptical of cut flowers (who wants to buy those half-dead objects, anyway?). I speak as a bonafide grower now. There's no turning back. Wish me a green tomorrow.
C.K. MEENA
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