In search of a pot...

I love the idea of a windowsill herb garden, with fresh basil, lavender, and thyme spilling out, ready to pick and use. Unfortunately a windowsill herb garden does not love me. I'll admit I really know nothing about gardening - my mom's idea of gardening was to stick something in the ground and then ignore it. It works. Her garden, once you separate the plants from the weeds, always has enough to feed the neighborhood. My dad's idea of gardening is to call in the professionals and then, when they're gone, go after the plants with a pair of dull, rusty hedge trimmers. This does not work. Go figure.

So, yeah, meticulous gardening is not in my genes. But I keep trying. A couple years ago I tried mom's technique. I bought a window box, dirt, and two lavenders and a basil plant. Within a week my lavender was attempting suicide and my basil had a new colony of spider mites, which are, apparently, designed to withstand a direct nuclear attack. Nothing kills them. Every gardening site I looked at said to just hose down the plant with a high-power spray of water on a regular basis to knock off the mites and encourage them to find something else to munch. Right. Lots of high-powered hoses in this apartment. I could drag the window box to my shower but not sure that's quite the same.

So finally gave up and put my aloe plants (which, being cacti, were actually surviving my black thumb, though they've morphed into the strangest looking aloe plants I've ever seen) in the window box, along with a random green plant that I was sold after I walked into a gardening center and asked for a plant I couldn't kill. It came close to death once but survived. Fingers crossed.

This Saturday I was at Central Market and they had a display of beautiful 4" herbs for just $2.50 each. Now how can I pass that up? They called out to me, promising that this time, THIS TIME, they'd actually grow and flourish. And I hadn't had my morning coffee yet so I believed them. Two lavenders, one rosemary, and one basil later, I left, with grand plans of replanting them in my window box.

One problem. Remember that "cannot be killed" green plant and two aloes? They already had claim to the window box.

No problem, I'll just replant them in new pots. Really, the aloe were needing a larger pot anyway and the random green plant needs a shadier spot. So I could just swing by target and pick up a couple of those cheap plastic pots. No problem. No problem at all.

Until I went to target.

Did you know that, on November 1st, a full eighth of the store becomes Tacky Christmas Wonderland? I didn't. And did you know that TCW is put right in the place the gardening section used to be? Nope, me neither. So I was faced with a sea of shiny green glitter and not a single pot in sight. Maybe they moved them one aisle over? Nope, old halloween stuff. Maybe the other way? Four aisles of pampered pets stuff, twelve of pampered child stuff, nothing for the would-be-pampered plants. Maybe home repair? Nope. Nada. Sporting goods? Uh uh. Home dec? Sorry. Candles and fake plants section? Not a chance.

I wandered ALL OVER that stupid store with ice cream melting in my car without spotting a single pot. I even considered a little trash can but even those were too big. Arg!

So I'm stuck. I transfered my aloes over to an old dishwasher detergent container but the random green plant has no place to go. This evening I'll drop DH off at church and run up to Home Depot and THEY should have SOMETHING for my poor plant. But seriously now. This is a major, heavily populated urban area. You'd think that I could get a pot without driving 20 minutes. Oh well, it's worth it in the end if my little lavenders blossom and light up the room.

You hear that little lavenders? See what I go through for you?

Oh, gotta go. One's trying to die already. Sigh.