They're still living...

When we returned from our camping trip in Ludington my niece left me a note which included "your flowers are still living." That struck me as comical...I asked her to water them while we were away. Generally when plants see me coming at the "plant place" they either hide or try to look as wilted and sickly as possible, so I won't choose them. (giggle) I try to pick plants that are low maintenance, because I know how I am when it comes to watering...or not...and feeding/fertilizing--what's that? So, yes, plants live a devilishly dangerous life at my house--their life is a precarious balance of being over-watered or under-watered or just generally forgotten about. So, yes...the plants are "still living"...thriving...no...never that! Well, maybe I am being too harsh, they may have windows of time where they "thrive" albeit very narrow windows. When winter arrives I am sure they are relieved to be put out of their misery. I did receive a nice plant from my husband and son on mother's day this year, and my sister who has green thumbs, fingers, hands and arms, gifted me with some wonderful plants and flowers this year. I warned her they may not survive...but so far they have. And we even grew some flowers (a total of 3 survived out of about a dozen) from seeds that my son got in an Easter egg hunt with his friends this spring...and so it goes...

The aforementioned "mother's day plant" that attracts hummingbirds--during the brief times that it has "thrived" and actually kept some of its blooms, that is...












don't let this one small bloom fool you...its the only one the poor thing has--no wait, it has two...or three...




I think these would have been blooms...had they not dried up and blown away?








this is one of the plant groupings from my sister (no comments sis!)















and these are the ones we grew from seeds...they almost met an early demise from an over-watering incident... we did have one casualty, but the other 2 have come back beautifully