My Joyful Affair with the Flower Aristocrat

(09/06/07)


I cannot fully admit that i have a green thumb but i love green things sprouting on the horizontally-challenged space that surround my home-cute-home. I have to utilize and maximize every square inch of vacant lot available for a blade of bermuda grass or a piece of a decorative pebble so as to have a house-with-a-garden. Though a garden with a house would have been better (or best) but for now a pocket garden is all what my pocket can afford.

Anyway, one variety among my few greens is orchids in pots and others attached to 2 driftwoods. I’ve been tending them for almost a year now; few have withered and died, but most have survived!

Actually, I wasn’t into orchids before until Manong Romeng started to frequent our subdivision every weekend. Perched on his right shoulder was a big basket of orchid plants which according to him came all the way from Bacolod City. The flowers were just irresistible! And like Persephone of the Greek myth, I was sooo enticed by their wondrous bloom that i just had to buy, kahit 2 stems lang!

And you could tell what happens next. The two stems had become x2 and even x3! Hala, it could be addicitng pala! And when i calculated and realized that i had shelled out a good amount of money for this adorable aerial plant, i had to hide (hehehehe…but please don’t tell!) from Manong Romeng the next time he would pass by our block. He would call out though, "Ma’am, maayong aga! Mabakal ka orchids?" And I just had to restrain myself from responding to his call just to avoid being tempted to buy more! And when I sensed and felt that he had went on his way after presuming that I was’nt home I would hurry to the window and surreptitiously peep at the jalousies to see if he got new species, or just to look and admire (hayy, the most i could do) the colorful flowers in his basket.

So okay, what do i get in return from these orchids__the so-called floral aristocrat of the flowering plant world?

SPELL this: J—O—Y !

down

in my

heart…


deep,

deep,

down

in my heart!


Truly, it is such a joy for me to discover new refreshing green roots branching out from the plant itself…

or new bulb-shaped singil or saha bulging and growing…

or new stems of flower buds sprouting and reaching out….

And i just can hardly contain the excitement in my heart as I joyfully wait for the morning when these buds open to eye-catching colors of stunning orange, deep fuchsia, butter yellow, majestic purple, and virginal white…all blooming in full glory!