Green Fingers

                                                                                        

Granny McDonald, shook her head, sighed and her brow crumpled into even deeper furrows than normal. The object that caused her to frown, sat with blackened stem and leafless twisted branches, in a pot on the windowsill. Another plant had bitten the dust never to rise again.

She had thought -not for the first time - that this was ‘The One‘. But despite lavishing it with oodles of loving care, it had gone the way of all the others and now looked like some grotesque dead thing from the land of nightmares. What was it with her and plants? She loved flowers and greenery, but give her anything growing in a pot and it was like giving the poor thing a death sentence.

Over the years, despite reading hundreds of books and writing dozens of letters to ‘Gardener’s Question Time’, she must have inadvertently murdered many thousands of plants. I say inadvertently, because she never set out to decimate the plant population, quite the opposite in fact. Her aim was simply to be able to successfully grow just one plant, any plant. She longed for green fingers, but on her performance to date, felt that any green in her system must have come from the ‘Wicked Witch of the West’.

Still, she wouldn’t give up. All she needed was to find a strong plant, one so tough that even she couldn’t kill. ‘There has to be one that I haven’t tried before.’ she thought, as she began to search through her gardening books. She had little success and was still searching when Rory her grandson called by after school. ‘What’s up Granny?’ he asked, ‘another plant gone and died on you?’

‘Aye son, but I’m not giving up, I’m looking for something really tough, something that’s hard to kill, but I’ve had no luck so far.’

‘What kind of plant are you after?’

‘Anything, anything at all, just so long as it doesn’t died on me son.’

‘Tell you what, Granny I’ll ask around at school, some of my friends, dads, are into gardening.’

The next night, Rory brought around four pots, each containing a small plant. ‘This one is a Japonicas, that one is a Fuchsia and that’s a Lavender,’ he explained.

‘And what’s that weedy looking one called?’

‘I’m not sure Granny, I got it off Tom, who got it off his brother Charlie’s mate, John, who said he didn‘t know what it was called.’

‘Never mind son, here’s a couple of pounds, get some sweets and share them your friends. Now, off you go home for your tea.’

For the next few weeks Granny McDonald mollycoddled those four small plants. Each was watered, fed, placed in a warm sunny position on the windowsill where they all died; bar one. That’s right, the weedy looking one survived. Not only did it survive, but over time it grew into a strong vigorous plant, with distinctive green variegated leaves and small lilac flowers.

Granny was so please with her magnificent achievement that she placed the plant on a table in the bay window of the front room and preened as neighbours waved and pointed it out to their friends. The plant thrived in it’s new sunny location and grew until it practically filled the bay with it’s greenery. As word spread people came from miles around to admire Granny McDonalds horticultural wonder. But like all good things her green fingered delight didn’t last long. One morning the police came calling, the plant was confiscated and granny was threatened with prison if she ever attempted to grow Cannabis again.