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Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Ungrateful I call it

Well spring has sprung and all over Vienna tiny little plants and blossoms are emerging from winter and starting to reach for the sky to savour the warming rays of the sun.


Not on my terrace. One of my Spindelstrauch plants (Euonymus Japonica ‘Aureomarginata’) has decided that this is the perfect time to turn up its toes. The other looks like it is on the way out.

To be fair – the dead one has looked a bit crook for a month or so but in the last week it has just tossed in the towel. It now has crackly leaves which is never a good sign. The one that is hanging on is starting to go yellow at the edges – heading towards crackliness.

This is an appalling act of treachery and ungratefulness.

I wrapped them up properly for winter and looked after them all during the cold weather - and they repay me by dying at the first sign of warm weather.

When I think of the trouble I went to choose them and pot them with just the right mix of stones and pebbles at the bottom of the pots for proper drainage – and then the very best potting mix and first class fertilizer.

I mean I didn’t expect a round of applause but is it too much to hope for that a plant can live on my terrace for 12 months?

It makes me sick.

Ungrateful I call it. 

10 comments:

  1. Maybe you should pin them? ;-)

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  2. It looks like you left the tops uncovered, wind burn and too much sun in the cold perhaps? Or if dormant cut them back and wait for new growth, or better yet hire a tender that simply replaces plants routinely.

    Your could open a nice wine and when the tender is done chat about orchids. Those need replaced a lot.

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  3. Merisi: Too crispy

    fmsgmccllc: The guy said i could leave the tops uncovered! Plastic plants may be better.

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  4. My first pineapple is doing well. In the two weeks since I discovered the fruit part growing, it is now about an inch high and maybe a little bit wider than that. I won't put my pineapple plants outside until the beginning of June. Hope your plant actually makes it. I haven't seen signs of life from my grape vines yet.

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  5. Bastards! I feel your pain. I molly coddled my white bat plant and then it started to flower (I even took photos of it each day) but the flower spike turned up its toes while I was away. The kids assured me they watered it. Too much perhaps? Go plastic.

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  6. I think A is dreading to come home and see what I have done (or not done would be a better way to put it) to his plants. Thanks for reminding me I should pop outside and check on them all and maybe get the hose out to water them !!!

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  7. Ghastly, indeed...you should file a complaint...at least that is what I as born Viennese would recommend...the question is with which office ?

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  8. esb: Perhaps I should try pineapples?

    Sandy: Yes I think my outdoors plants should be plastic - given my brown thumb.

    Me: Good luck with that. Tell him the cat pissed on them.

    David: So may departments - I think I should start with the Mayor Herr Haupl -_ am sure he will care/

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  9. I checked the angle of your terrace, and it appears to me to be facing north by northwest, so maybe you are not getting enough direct sunlight for your plants(?), I am not sure.

    I usually have about two-to-three hours of direct sunshine on my pineapple plants per day while they are indoors and water them about every other day, but if you had larger pots then you could go for longer time periods between watering, as you take trips. I keep them outdoors from June through August, but it is very hot and dry in my world so I have to water them everyday when they are outside. But I think they are beautiful plants, simplistically large green leaves that kind of look like blades of grass, only almost two feet long.

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  10. esb: You ate probably right about the water and the sunlight. I can find many ways to kill plants.

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