Tuesday, December 23, 2008

A Green (And Red) Thumb For Christmas

What then, exactly, is a green thumb?

Why is it that some people on this planet are able to endlessly surround themselves with lush, thriving plants that seem to grow themselves, while others couldn’t keep a cactus alive if their own life depended on it?

Those who can’t, attribute this strange power to something mysteriously referred to as a “green thumb”. But those who can, know better.

There is nothing mysterious about a green thumb. It’s not like trying to hit a round baseball with a round bat, interpretting tax law, or solving quadratic equations. It’s not a secret skill passed down from teacher to student since antiquity by covert growing societies, and it’s not a special “gift” bestowed by Mother Nature.

A green thumb is really just simple empathy. It is the ability to sense what a plant needs and to provide it - when the plant needs it. More importantly however, it’s the ability to just stand back and stay out of the plant’s way. In the end, it may be that last part that is the most important.

Plants are marvelous evolutionary inventions. They, and they alone, have discovered a way to harness the naked energy of the sun and to package that energy into little parcels that can be used in a myriad of ways. Plants are able to take the most basic of substances – water, carbon dioxide and what nutrients they can scrape from the soil – and produce structures and substances of the most amazing complexity.

Back before we began to put plants in containers, they grew in the ground. They tied their tap roots into the soil and then sent the other roots off in search of food and water. They raised their tops towards the sun, the source of it all, in spirited competition with other plants for the best position. They discovered, through trial and error, what to avoid and what to seek out. They learned to move away from gravity and towards the light. They learned to trust the climate and to avoid the weather. They learned how to continue to grow, regardless of the damage, change or misfortune that was passed their way.

As some wise old fart once said: “If you take a tree from the environment and put it in a pot – you owe that tree!” Here’s hoping that your happy plants are giving you a green and red “thumbs up” this Holiday season.