‘Why do I do this?’: The important realisation I made during Cyclone Alfred

They say there are two certainties in life …death and taxes. With all the certainty in the world, I think I can add another to the list.

Potplants can be quite the challenge for some. Picture: Supplied

They say there are two certainties in life … death and taxes. With all the certainty in the world, I think I can add another to the list. If I bring home a potted plant from an unsuspecting nursery, it will not – never, ever – survive.

In fact, no matter how much care and attention I give it, it’s unlikely to see past its first birthday.

It’s not that I intentionally set out to maim or hurt these once-thriving pieces of flora. I really like plants, a lot.

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But no matter how much love and attention I bestow upon their bright, shiny green leaves, there comes a day when those leaves wither and turn brown, like they’ve been chain smoking in a dingy bar for the past 50 years.

Yes, I’m a bona fide plant killer. Convicted as charged. And, I honestly think I am beyond help. Costa Georgiadis and Jamie Durie combined could Backyard Blitz their way around my house and still they’d leave crestfallen, head in head in hands.

There really is no nurturing someone, who can’t nurture herself.

I mean we are talking about someone who – and I’m not at all proud to say this – once tragically killed a cactus. I adored it so much, I accidentally overwatered it.

Sound familiar to anyone else whose thumbs are nowhere near a shade of green?

So why then, given all the heartache, the guilt and not to mention the hit to the hip pocket, do we serial plant killers keep going back for more. Why do we insist on making our home a botanical crime scene.

I must say I really started to reflect on this when those of us in the firing line were prepping for the arrival of Cyclone Alfred.

The clarion call had gone out. Please secure all loose items around your home and remove potential missiles from outside.

Sharyn Ghidella is a confessed plant killer. Picture: David Kelly

Now, I’d never really considered my potted basil had the potential to cause too much harm, but perhaps in a severe gust of wind, it could end up in the neighbour’s dining room … but not as an ingredient in their salad.

So, that’s when the Great Pot Plant Migration began. There I was corralling all my leafy dependants, resetting their GPS and sending them on a long-haul journey – from the outside in.

Their resting place (hopefully, not their final one) was my cluttered lounge room.

Now it’s a task that sounds simple enough. Until you survey what’s before you and you realise your back deck is just one pot plant away from becoming a jungle. And not a lush, healthy jungle at that.

What I had to relocate was an entire plant hospice.

A potential plant graveyard and as I worked overtime to move that mountain of terracotta with not a lot of life in it, I kept asking myself: why do I
do this?

Why do I invest so much time in watering, moving, potting and talking to a bunch of leafy inhabitants, that honestly, would rather be anywhere else and give me so little in return?

If I want basil, why don’t I just buy it from the supermarket and let them worry about whether it will become a potential missile or not?

Sadly, I’m not sure I found the answer and sadly, despite my best intentions, I didn’t throw any of the pots out.

Did I mention I really love plants. As the wind moved on, I just moved them all back to their original positions, lovingly looking down on them with a renewed sense of hope, that maybe this time it will be different. Maybe this time they will all thrive.

Because, deep down, I really do want to see them prosper and grow. I want to think, as a responsible adult, that after putting so much effort in, I am capable of nurturing something and that I can
sustain life.

I don’t want a tragic ending for my leafy offspring.

Because nothing says you’ve got your life together more than a giant flowering peace lily in the corner or a Lots A Lemon tree in a pot that actually has lots of lemons on it.

Thriving plants are a mark of success.

Which may explain why I’ve never really thought of myself as all that successful.

Except, of course, when it comes to my fake plants. You should see them right now. They are positively thriving.

Originally published as ‘Why do I do this?’: The important realisation I made during Cyclone Alfred