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Gardening
I constantly hear how easy my life must be with all my servants, chefs, and security guards. I often tell the people who say this that it's not all it's cracked up to be, and that there are times that I yearn for a simpler life amongst the Plebs. I mean, it's not like I have always lived like this, I was once a lowly peasant like the rest of you. So I thought, why not try it out again? Nothing permanent, mind you, but short bursts of normal every day activities that the plebs of the Realms participate in to get a better feel for their plight.
A few months ago I visited a neighbor who had an abundance of beautiful plants and a lovely greenhouse and I thought it would be nice to have more plants around my establishment. I was in need of a new endeavor to write about and I saw an opportunity. I mean, how hard can taking care of plants really be? When I mentioned as such, she told me that caring for plants is actually quite easy, and even gifted me a healthy baby aloe plant to get me started in my new endeavor. She assured me that this particular plant is almost impossible to kill, easy to care for, and has the added bonus of having plenty of practical medicinal applications. So off I went back home with the new plebeian task of caring for little Aloysius.
Now, I have always known that I would make a quite terrible mother. I love children, but I have no idea how to care for them. A similar sentiment is why I have never had plants. But surely, I thought, Aloysius McPlantington has to be easier than a child. I mean, he can't cry or defecate, he doesn't make messes or require much space, I don't need to feed him or really pay much attention to him at all. So I put him in my apartments and went about my day.
Some indeterminable amount of time later, I happened to notice that Aloysius looked quite sad. He was droopy and rather soft and mushy to the touch, and I thought he may be becoming sick. Now, when a person is sick you bring them some soup and tea make sure they are nice and warm and comfy. After a week of providing him with all the soup and tea his soil would drink he did not improve, in fact, his health seemed to have declined further. The next step with illness when that remedy doesn't work is to bring the afflicted to see a doctor. Now, I might be a doctor, but I know nothing about the leafy anatomy of flora, so I needed a practitioner of vegetative medicine.
So, down I strolled to my gardens and greenhouses in search of Miguel. Miguel has the distinction of being my head gardener and tending to all of the beautiful plants that grace my garden paths. My gardens are a very important part of my establishment, as all kind of things happen out there that people never even know about, which is quite the point. Who better to treat my little sick Aloysius that the man who tends such important and illicit pathways?
Miguel looked quite concerned when I showed him the state that my charge was in, and downright horrified when I explained my treatment regimen. He wanted to confiscate him immediately and find him a more suitable caretaker, but I talked him into allowing me to keep him and help me to care for him instead. He did not seem very happy about this task set before him, but it turns out, the threat of losing a good paying job is a great motivator towards helpfulness.
So he gave me instructions on how to take care of my poor, helpless plant. I was to place him in bright, indirect sunlight, so my south facing window was perfect for this. He was to be watered deeply but infrequently, to which I could relate, and not to be allowed to sit in water. Apparently if the roots are allowed to remain wet they can being to rot, which is where the term 'root rot' comes from which is news to me, as I thought it meant something quite different and way more inappropriate. Speaking of inappropriate, he also needs to be fertilized about once a month, which seems odd for a plant but I am sure I can get one of my clients to do it in exchange for a free service of some sort. So, once I got someone to explain to me which way south was, I settled him in and gave him his water. Then I set about finding him, and myself, proper fertilization.
The next several weeks were rather touch and go, and not in the good way that makes me quick money. It was in the frightening way where I kept thinking poor Aloysius was about to die, and then suddenly he would get miraculously better, and then was suddenly on death's door step again, and then once again hale and hearty. This cycle repeated itself many times, and Miguel claimed that this was just the nature of Aloe plants, that they wax and wane, and that I was doing fine when I asked him what I was doing wrong.
So I carried on, feeling far less worried about my leafty child now that I had been reassured by a professional. I patted myself on the back and felt quite proud of myself for how well I had managed to continue succeeding in my task. Until the day I noticed something odd. While entertaining a guest one night I managed to get a bit of beard burn and I snipped a piece of Aloysius to use his juices to sooth my aggravated skin. Being the first time I had done this, I was keeping a keen eye on how this would effect my seemingly fickle child. He seemed to be doing alright, until one day I could not find the spot where I had snipped. I searched and searched and discovered it was not there. So either he had miraculously regrown his appendage, or...
Off I went to find Miguel and demand to know exactly what was going on. I headed to the greenhouses by way of the kitchens, which means that I needed to pass by the composting area. It was there that I found him, tossing the decrepit bodies of Aloysiuses gone by into the plant graveyard. Dear reader, he had been replacing my precious baby with a new one!! I was appalled! Here I was, thinking that I was doing a great job at plant rearing, only to discover that I was killing them at an alarming rate. Judging by the amount of plants he was heaving into the pile and the amount of times mine astonishingly recovered, I must have killed at least one plant every week.
I stormed in, a scathing speech on the tip of my tongue, and then I realized something as he looked at me with either the fear of being fired or murdered, or both. He hadn't done this to be mean. I clearly was a gods awful plant-mother. I took an unkillable plant and killed it more times than I can count. Once he realized that I was grateful rather than angry, he explained to me that I was doing everything right, and still I was killing that plant faster than anyone he had ever seen. Plants aren't for everyone, he informed me, and some people just seem to radiate an aura that murders them like you all murder fashion. He hadn't had the heart to tell me that I just couldn't keep it alive and that it was hopeless, so he just kept replacing it with a new one.
So, plebs, what I learned in my attempt at gardening is that no plant is invincible, some people just cannot coax a plant into continuing to live, and my gardener is so sweet that he spent the time to find multiple aloe plants that looked just like Aloysius and then risk my wrath by going into my apartments and switching them just to make me feel like less of a failure. So I can't tend my own plants, but there will still be more plants around at Alchimia Lupinaar. Miguel has promised to bring more plants inside for decorative purposes and make sure that they are being tended to properly. He's also been sending fresh cut flowers up to my apartments, which I don't have to worry about keeping alive as they are completely disposable.
So you see, my dears, everything has once again worked out for the best. I'm back to simply smelling the flowers like I was clearly meant to, and I learned some important lessons along the way. I do hope you are enjoying my adventures, and that you'll join me at the next thing I am sure to be awful at.