This is three “million bells” plants. Purple, I seem to recall. I bought them from a reputable nursery after the danger of frost had passed, repotted them promptly in fresh potting soil, and have watered them daily in their sunny location. What the hell’s the problem?! This is ridiculous. My next door neighbor’s million bells are beautiful. They are planted in the EXACT same pots and get the EXACT same angle of sunlight as mine. Hers are a lush cascade of color. Mine are, for all intents and purposes, dead. So, dump it out, laugh it off, right? No.

I have a genetic RIGHT to a green thumb. Even if it’s a recessive characteristic, like blue eyes, I. Should. Have it. My paternal grandfather: farmer. Yep, tobacco and cattle, with a fabulous vegetable garden every year to boot. Paternal grandmother: renowned gardener. One-acre yard filled with lush flowerbeds, pots of plants on the porch and in the house that grew faster than she could repot them. She’d throw plants cuttings in the creek and they’d wash up downstream, take root, and bloom profusely. Their child, my dad: farmer with his Master’s in Agricultural Engineering. Green thumb and brainy about it. I didn’t realize as a child that my mother ALSO had a green thumb. She wasn’t as interested in farming or gardening, but when she filled pots and beds with the obligatory petunias and geraniums they flourished. And when she found plants she enjoyed, like Red Hot Poker or Rhododendron – watch out, they’d grow and multiply like kudzu.