Is It Earth Day?

Today I started efforts to raise the quality of life for all plants in our apartment. With spring just around the corner, it seems appropriate to get my plans in line. So on my lunch break I started with the tree. Patrick and I received said tree as a gift from his aunt. It's a nice tree, however, it is pretty large and we had to transport it home from his parent's house 3 hours away so it was not a practical gift. Either way it became our Christmas tree and was still adorned in tinsel and red and silver ornaments. The tree is constantly shedding leaves but never looks bare. I started by picking up all of the dropped leaves. Without exaggerating, I can say I threw away enough leaves to make a complete other tree! Now that the leaves were gone the coffee table looked much nicer but I noticed a mold growing on the soil under the leaves (from the water). I gave the tree 3 glasses of water and moved on. I also removed the tinsel but left the ornaments on the tree because they're kind of festive and fun. Then I moved onto my miniature rose bush. This was and still remains the first and only flowers Patrick has bought me so I don't want to kill it but I sort of stopped watering it over the winter. I decided to prune off the dead leaves. Aside from where the flowers died, the plant is still green and thriving so I moved it to the kitchen where it will get more light and is closer to the sink. I tried this a few months earlier with my hyacinths from Holland but I think they got confused by the weather and bloomed too early and then froze so they are nice and green but won't flower again. I also watered the tree in the bathroom (given to us by our neighbors before they moved out) which is actually very healthy as it lives in the sunniest place in the apartment. After taking care of all my plants, I decided to attempt to bring Patrick's back to life. Patrick is more of a cactus man. He rescued an overgrown cactus left by the former tenant, trimmed it and brought it to life but he can't handle a proper plant. He forgets that plants need two things - sunshine and water. I bought Patrick a bonsai tree (he wanted one) on the day he handed in his thesis and retired his student status. I gave him the challenge of keeping said tree alive now that he is an adult - he had already killed the one other plant he's owned since we lived here. Anyway, it was a cute little tree and the dirt was covered in moss, when I bought it, the florist specifically recommended I pick one with an all over moss base. When I saw the tree almost completely bare of leaves and in a dark corner of Patrick's room I asked what happened. He blamed the moss for keeping the water away from the dirt although it looked like the plant had not seen water in weeks. Today, I decided to try to nurture his plant back to life in the kitchen window. Here's to hoping and to the weekend!