Saturday 25 July 2009

Plant murderer

I'm wondering what the correct term for someone who kills his own seedlings is. There is a definite mix of emotions at play when you find yourself making the decision that you have enough of that, you don't need to prick out a dozen more of that one. Pulling the seedlings out it's not enough to simply discard them, I find myself crushing them to emphatically see them off, as if I don't quite trust myself not to have a change of heart half way through. So it is at the moment with aquilegia seedlings I am growing. Not quite believing that some of them would germinate at all, as usual I have sown far too many and I have way to many to deal with. When you consider the efforts put in to getting them going, sourcing the seed and waiting eagerly for it to arrive, scrubbing the pots clean, buying and mixing the medium, sprinkling on the vermiculite, putting them in plastic bags and labelling them and then waiting and waiting sometimes for up to eight weeks, it's perhaps not surprising that the decision to kill them is so agonising. So go emphatically they must. Once you've made the decision of course a kind of cruel enjoyment begins to creep in, the same feeling that can overtake you when pruning a shrub and you know you've already gone a bit too far. I can't get over the feeling that there is an element of infanticide about the whole thing, and promise myself I'll have more faith and sow less next time.

2 comments:

  1. Your love for plants can be judge through your blog. Just wanted to say that Veganism is a murder too as plants are living things that have the capacity to feel as well. Iflorist.co.uk

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