Giving Too Much Love
It’s difficult to imagine giving too much love to something you really care about, but sometimes you need to step back and let the person or thing you love handle their own situation.
Now that the inside of our B&B is basically finished and most of the design work has been done, I’ve spent a lot of time and energy working on the outside of the house. Â It’s been fun to theme and replant the large beds all around the property. Â Finding plants that are beautiful and colorful while also being a bit creepy or off-beat has been a joy.
In the bed in front of the large window looking into our library, we planted a bunch of foxtail ferns and some dark purple salvia. Â (Officially: “Rockin’ Deep Purple Salvia.”). I love these colors (notice that Marching Roundtable colors are the same green and purple!) and they look exotic and beautiful.
A couple of the salvia plants started to struggle and the leaves turned a light green instead of the healthy dark green. Â Thinking that they were dry and needed extra love via water, I gave these plants extra amounts of water each day. Â Things just got worse.
Finally I asked the professionals at the wonderful Landmark Nursery where we’ve been getting great advice and healthy plants, and it turns out a plant turning that light yellow color of green means it is getting TOO MUCH water! Â So I was just making it worse.
When I expressed my dismay, the nursery pros told me it would be fine, “They are hearty plants so just leave them alone and they will recover.” Â And indeed they have!
So sometimes you just need to leave plants (and people) alone to work out their own struggles and bring themselves back to health. Â I’ll be there keeping my eye on things, but kids (and plants) often do better if they learn to fight their own battles and learn to be self sufficient.
Hope you can some see the Salvia in person and book a stay. Â See the B&B at www.PhantomHistoryHouse.com
Tim Hinton
July 29, 2023
