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One thing I love about gardening is getting new plants, putting them in the garden and going out the next day to find that they have breathed a sigh of relief. They're looking healthier and glossier, more spread out and/or more upright. Most of the time, you didn't realize that they were in distress in their pot, but it's a delight to look at them in the ground and think oh, little buddy, you're so much happier here.
On Monday I was in town, doing my usual grocery shop, and the place where I get my refills had a shelf of plants you could buy. I have a garden where at least half of it is in full shade (it gets about an hour of sunlight a day tops,) and I want to get the soil covered by plants asap. Ideally, I want that ground cover to also be edible, or useful for medicine/scent/pollinator food etc. This is a difficult ask.
So when I saw they had an English violet (edible in salads and sweets, makes a healthy sweet tea, full of vitamin C, grows in full shade, vigorous spreader,) I thought that's the plant for me! But oh, the poor little thing was on its last legs, absolutely flat in its pot and turning yellow.
I took it to the counter and said "Could you please give it a dribble of water, just so it survives until I get it home?" So the guy held it under the tap for a moment and sold it to me for £1. (Which was a bargain because not only did I get the plant but also the nice terracotta pot it was in.)
It had already started to recover by the time I got it home, so this was not at its worst:
but after rehydrating it properly overnight, and planting it out yesterday, this is what it looks like today:
It is genuinely a joy to see a suffering creature suffering slightly less.
On Monday I was in town, doing my usual grocery shop, and the place where I get my refills had a shelf of plants you could buy. I have a garden where at least half of it is in full shade (it gets about an hour of sunlight a day tops,) and I want to get the soil covered by plants asap. Ideally, I want that ground cover to also be edible, or useful for medicine/scent/pollinator food etc. This is a difficult ask.
So when I saw they had an English violet (edible in salads and sweets, makes a healthy sweet tea, full of vitamin C, grows in full shade, vigorous spreader,) I thought that's the plant for me! But oh, the poor little thing was on its last legs, absolutely flat in its pot and turning yellow.
I took it to the counter and said "Could you please give it a dribble of water, just so it survives until I get it home?" So the guy held it under the tap for a moment and sold it to me for £1. (Which was a bargain because not only did I get the plant but also the nice terracotta pot it was in.)
It had already started to recover by the time I got it home, so this was not at its worst:
but after rehydrating it properly overnight, and planting it out yesterday, this is what it looks like today:
It is genuinely a joy to see a suffering creature suffering slightly less.
