What happens when your favourite colour changes?

For the past week, I have been working on house plants, using the top of the kitchen table. We have had problems with the never-ending nuisance of gnats, or fruit flies, or whatever the tiny flying bugs are that won't give up and perish completely. So I purchased some sand and placed a layer on the top of all of the house plants. This is supposed to prevent the pesky insects from making soil their base of operations. While doing this I decided to upgrade the housing for a few plants who had outgrown their pots. I should mention at this point that I am a certified horticultural aficionado, and my reasoning is above reproach when deciding such things. How dare you even question my intuitive plant-care genius. Of course you can repot in the middle of winter.

This morning I decided to clean up the mess, but wait, I still have one empty pot, and that green plant over there looks like it needs a larger pot (especially since Sherry said it didn't). The empty pot wasn't any larger, but I could split the plant and it would effectively double the available soil. Daniel was around and informed me that when he had previously tried to pierce the dirt with his soil sensor, it was like trying to lance granite. Yes, yes, the doctor of all things growing realizes that it must be terribly root-bound and desperate for a change in abode.

I'll just grab this butter knife and stab around in the soil a great deal - to loosen things up. It's still stuck! I'll have to saw through the roots here and stab around some more around the perimeter, there we go. Good heavens, what kind of plant is this? These roots look like a freakish mix of potato tentacles and carrots. But it's such a small little grassy plant. What is it doing with all these roots! It will never fit in these two pots. Its needs are far more excessive than I'd imagined. So to Walmart I go to thriftily save my surgeoned friend.

Walmart is conveniently next to Rona in the South. Rona conveniently has a garden centre. I conveniently have 3 very small pots that would be remiss if I didn't find them tenants. I'll just check to grab a few interesting specimens to add to my oxygen amassing force. What's this, a giant truckload sale! Just look at all these giant plants, all so cheap! But I must have them! I decided to speak to a very knowledgeable staff member (she knew more than I did!), who enlightened me about things like how when I replanted my cacti in a tall pot I was an idiot because cactus roots stay shallow - and yes it is apparently stupid to repot anything in the middle of winter (not to mention my terribly claustrophobic flowering grass plant was probably happy to have such small conditions). But is she smart enough to go to Walmart to save a few dollars on pots? I don't know, I didn't feel it an appropriate subject to bring up. But I did do just that. Since the pots, and the plants were so cheap, I picked up the 3 mini plants to fill my mini pots, my two larger pots for the cause of this whole trip, plus 5 other plants, because well, they're green.

Even though I had to proceed to setting a record for the most time spent trying to checkout of a store ever, my mood wasn't dampened. It was also exciting to try and fit all those plants into the cab of my truck with me (they look MUCH bigger when they're wrapped in paper). I was just glad I could still see my side mirror and do shoulder checks if I looked at very specific angles. I got home and made my mess on the kitchen table worse. I didn't finish them all before needing to rush off to meet Sherry for the Mid-wife appointment. But you know what? Even though I thought Sherry would be a little peeved that I was spending time and money on my distracting addiction instead of working on our home renos, she smiled at me and was supportive (and explained that the grassy thing is a spider plant). There have been many moments like that. It's like she read in a book somewhere that one of the many secrets to confusing your husband and having a great marriage is to roll with his illogical moments and love him anyway. I try to return the favour.

I finished repotting the new plants when we got home and cleaned up the table at last while Sherry made a most delicious beef broccoli & boc choy stir-fry. Then I remembered that someone asked me what my favourite colour was yesterday, and I suddenly became unsure of something that has been unchanging since as long as I can remember. Somewhere, somehow, someway, sometime, something metamorphosed. So my blog changed colour schemes to celebrate the accurate me. Green is the new blue. Plants are the new candy. Children are so attracted to sweets, but me, I grow more and more unimpressed by sugar. But get me into a greenhouse and I want it all.