Green Thumb

When I was young, a visit from my grandparents usually meant yardwork. And I don't mean pulling weeds - this was major yardwork. My grandpa and my dad would measure distances and pour concrete and lay out grass and plant trees and cut wood and build decks and arbors and playsets (like the one below). I was too young to really be called upon to help, and most of my memories consist of helping my mom mix lemonade and cut up watermelon.

My grandpa was a landscape architect by trade, which explains why these yardwork visits were so ambitious. My grandpa's full time job was at the Church Office Building, where he worked as the landscape architect for church temples. Although he retired before the advent of the smaller temples, he did the landscape design for most larger temples before that, including the Denver Temple (significant because my family lived there during it's construction, open house, and dedication), on up until Bountiful which was, I believe, the last temple landscaping that he designed.

My grandmother is every bit as much an expert in all things green as my grandpa was. The yard at my grandparents' house always was and still is beautiful and well-kept, and my grandma carefully cultivates flowers and fruit and small plots of vegetables, and goes on garden tours with her friends.

You would think, therefore, that a green thumb would be in my genes. But somehow it seems to have gotten lost or diluted along the way, or maybe I just haven't had the chance to cultivate it. I just can't keep plants alive. It discourages me, and I haven't really tried for several years now. Keeping a dog alive and happy is way easier than keeping a plant alive and happy, maybe because dogs are a lot more like people than plants. I mostly understand the needs of a dog, but the needs of a plant are strange and mysterious to me. Communicating with a dog is sometimes difficult. But communicating with a plant? I don't even know where to begin.

Recently I've decided I need to get over my fears. I'm starting to think about purchasing a house, and houses generally come with yards, and while I'm not yearning for vegetable plots or rosebushes, I'd like to at least have some confidence that I can keep a lawn green. I've been eying house plants, but couldn't quite get up the nerve to commit until I thought of something more useful. One of my New Year's goals has been to try a new recipe a week, and I frequently find myself buying fresh basil or cilantro, only to use a tiny bit and throw the rest out when it goes bad. So yesterday I went down to Home Depot and chose myself out a basil plant and a cilantro plant.

It made me surprisingly nervous. I feel like they'll die within a week. But I didn't want the plants to know that, so I bought them colorful pots and introduced them to Jin and named them Boris and Svetlana and placed them in a clean sunny spot on the windowsill in my kitchen. I have high hopes that if I give them love and health and happiness, they'll express their gratitude with a summer abundance of pesto and pico de gallo.