The Plant Rescuer

Newly planted Yucca-Rescue plants

If there isn't a plant rescue group for unwanted landscape plants, I think I will start one. I started yesterday with some Yucca plants.

My landlord at work is in the process of re-landscaping and had some of his men pull out dozens of new Yucca plants that have sprung up where a few large Yuccas had been pulled out a month earlier.The guys asked me if I wanted the new growths they were digging up.

Last month, the large, four foot tall plants were pulled out and put in a dumpster. I was sad that I could not salvage them. This was my chance at redemption. I could not save their "parents" but I could find new homes for these "orphans". The guys filled up 3 boxes of Yucca shoots. I loaded the boxes in the back of my van to take home.

When I got home, I found that I could only use one box of plants. This left me with two boxes to find homes for. I felt like a child with a box of kittens as I knocked on my neighbors' doors. I was not having any luck until I saw my next door neighbor and his mother who just came to their house to babysit. While these neighbors are not gardeners, it turns out Grandma was happy to take a box off my hands.

That left me with one box. I called David this morning and it turns out he had a spot at his house that was in need of drought-loving, low-maintenance landscape plants. He came to pick them up.

As I waved goodbye to my last group of babies, I was glad I was able to come to their rescue, and find them homes. I then had an 80's flashback to my college days and remembered the time my friends and I "saved" a plant from a campus bar.

An African Violet Named "Ursula"

My memory is a bit fuzzy. It was many years ( and beers!) ago. I was out with a group of my friends at our favorite campus bar, The Thirsty I. We were celebrating a birthday. I don't remember whose. After several pitchers of beer and "chair dances" later, we began to dance with the African Violet that was the centerpiece on our table.

My friend Mindy and I decided that our plant-centerpiece was not happy and needed to be rescued. We enlisted some guys that were waiting outside the bar. When the coast was clear, we handed the plant outside the window to our waiting friends.

We then exited the bar and were re-united with the newly liberated African Violet. We named her Ursula and took her bar-hopping. After what was probably the most fun night of her life, Ursula went home with Mindy and her roommate. I'm not sure whatever happened to Ursula. She may have had her life shortened by alcohol poisoning..... College life, go figure. Come to think of it, we may have been more of plant-nappers than rescuers. There is a statute of limitations on these things, right????

I'm not sure if this bar is still around but I am prepared to make full restitution. How about a box of Yucca plants?