A Plant A Day Till Spring – Day 40 – Petunias

“Black Petunia” – Summer 2013 – Whitney Avenue – Wilkinsburg, PA – If I was a plant… I would be a black petunia…

“A Plant a Day till Spring” will highlight one plant a day, starting on the winter solstice (December 21, 2013)… And ending on the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014)… If all goes to plan I will be starting with old Snowdrop photos from 2013… And ending with new photos of Snowdrops in 2014…

Good morning… Today is a special day for me… Two years ago today I quit heroin… I woke up feeling some kind of way… Actually… I woke up right around now… It was like a light switch had been flipped… I just didn’t want to do heroin anymore… No one could make me do it… And believe me… They tried… No amount of intervention… No amount of rehab… No twelve steps could save me… I just had to choose the right path for once in my life… And here I am…

Don’t know where I would be if I had never quit heroin… Probably dead… But here I am… Writing about gardening… Writing about my feelings… Writing to you… Hoping for nothing more than to positively affect your life… And through those positive effects… I hope to benefit my own life… It is starting to occur to me that that is what writing is all about… the good feeling I get when I write something I am proud of… I get that because of the effect I hope it will have on my readers… When it all works out… Well my friends… That is better than any heroin… Better than any high… Hell… Writing is the ultimate high… Words… They are like a drug… When the words come together in harmony… And the intended feeling is conveyed… There is nothing in the world like it… That is my new high…

In other news… The current temperature is -10 F… Though my thermometer reads “ERROR”…Maybe time for a new one… And DDT has been linked to Alzheimer’s… Big surprise huh?..

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I chose Petunias today because they are one of my favorite flowers… I don’t even really know why… And I have to admit… When it comes to Petunias… I’m a bit of a snob… My favorite nursery makes it easy though… My favorite… Any of the “WAVE”… Or “SHOCKWAVE” varieties… These varieties do not grow vertically… They grow horizontally like a groundcover… Shockwave in particular is a profuse bloomer…

A little secret… Shockwave petunias require massive amounts of nutrients to profusely bloom as intended… I actually feed my Shockwave “especially the plants in pots” every two weeks throughout summer… The result is always a mound of color…

If you have ever handled a petunia you know how sticky of a plant it is… This stickiness makes it very unappealing to insects… Hell… I don’t even like to touch them… I have had garden beds devastated by slugs before… Even the marigolds… All that was left were a few slime covered petunias… I have also noticed the neighborhood cats don’t exactly like this plant… They seem to steer clear of it…

Anyway… Thanks for reading… And thanks for the support… As always…

plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello

If you want some science – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petunias

New To writing and never had to cite sources before… These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring when I start writing more… My source (where applicable) is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information…

This website and all of the information presented within is provided free by the author… Me… It is my sole opinion and is not representative of anyone other than myself… Although this website is free… I sell prints of my photography here – www.society6.com/chriscondello – or you can contact me directly with questions at – c.condello@hotmail.com – Although it isn’t a requirement… It helps…

Remember to tip… My Bitcoin digital wallet address is – 1JsKwa3vYgy4LZjNk4YmPEHFJNjPt2wDJj

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