A month or two ago I bought a plant at the Greenfield's Farmers Market. It was a heliotrope and it was lovely. The plant seemed rich with flowers and sturdy. I marvelled at its thick beauty because I have a heliotrope at home which I grew from seed and love with all sorts of pride and delight. The above is a photo of the recently purchased plant with its rich, multi-hued purple flowers and vibrant green leaves about a week or so after I repotted it and put it in sunny company with a varigated lemon thyme.
I loved it so. But just yesterday I came to work and found it sitting in an over- sodden planter. I realized that the water I had supplied it on Friday did not drain out or get evaporated by the sun and soil. The poor plant was drowned. Horrified, I tipped the planter over to let out all the sitting water. I hoped that it would dry out and recover quickly. I went to a work meeting and after the meeting I saw a well-meaning coworker walking about with my watering can. Fearing the worst, I went outside and found that she had watered the heliotrope. I can only imagine that she saw its sickly sight and tried to help by watering, perhaps thinking that it was too dry! I poured out the water again and went in to admonish her.
I really wanted the plant to recover. I cut off the drooping limbs and branches, the grey flowers and swollen but limp stems and brought it home where i put the now-smaller plant in a pot with fresh soil, cutting off all dead items and hoping for the best.
When I was in my twenties and thirties I liked plants and flowers and enjoyed nature but never really understood the love of indoor plants. I thought they were pretty and appreciated them but had a boyf who had them all stacked up next to a window in one area. I have since discovered people have plants placed artfully around a house which I find is nicer. As I have gotten into my thirties I have enjoyed more and more the act of growing things from seed. Many Marches have seen me start flowers I really should wait longer to start and filled spaces inside by windows with seedlings and boxes of dirt. I understand this activity more now and appreciate the plants all clustered together by a window in the wintertime. The same guy from my past started a plant called a heliotrope when I lived with him and I was charmed that he would grow a plant because he heard of it in a ragtime song he taught himself to play on piano. A couple of years ago I saw a pack of heliotrope seeds for sale and just for amusement I bought them and tried to grow the plant. Out of the whole pack of seeds I successfully began a plant and still have it to this day. That plant is the healthier one in the above pic. I went for years not remembering its name and then something reminded me of the name of the purple color. It is rather "leggy" and long-branched. I was tempted to trim it way down to make it more bushy but DbR halted the scissors, pointing out that it was a healthy plant.
I've only seen it flower twice in the two+ years since I've grown it. I hope it will flower more.
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