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| That little basil plant in with the mint. |
It has always seemed counter-intuitive to me, but there
really is such a thing as “trying too hard.”
There is also such a thing as
trying the wrong way.
This came to mind when I was watering my potted herbs the
other day. I bought these as seedlings. Why? Because I have never been able to
raise anything from seed. I’ll plant a seed and get a sprout, that tiny little
filament stem topped by two little leaves. I watch it carefully, water it
carefully – and one day, there the little seedling will be lying, wilted and
dead on the soil, already turning back into dirt.
But that day as I watered my herbs, I saw a nice sturdy basil
plant growing in the mint pot. It landed there by accident. It got through the
vulnerable seedling stage without me even noticing it and there it was, a
sturdy young plant.
You know what the most common cause of death for
houseplants is? Not under-watering, overwatering. This link
calls it “fussing your plant to death.”
Sometimes, benign neglect is exactly what’s needed.
And sometimes, you can approach something the exact wrong
way. When I was a little kid, my mother tells me, I couldn’t figure out how to
jump. I’d stand there, knees bent, face screwed up in concentration, think
really hard about jumping and not move. I was always very verbal, but an
absolute mess with anything physical. I was thinking the word “Jump!” in my
head as hard as I could, but that, of course, didn’t get the job done. There is
something distinctly not verbal in physical movement and I didn’t have the
first clue how to access that.
So – I am going to try not to try, especially not in ways
that don’t work.
