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I Want to Live! -- What that Sick Plant is Really Saying

© Carol Wallace

For the past three years I have been threatening to shovel-prune my trumpet vine, which, in the six years since we planted it, has never put out a single flower. Then one day I made the threat in its hearing.The next week it put out nine huge, glorious trumpets.

I have heard tales of plants which flowered after a series of threats by their owners; I never believed them. I assumed (and still do) that the real story here is that the gardener's patience wore thin a wee bit short of the plant's natural cycle. Nevertheless, I spent the next week threatening my non-flowering wisteria. Blossom or die!

What that trumpet vine did was remind me of the basic fact that gardeners all too often forget. Plants want to live. They do everything in their own power to survive - including blooming, if it will keep them from being composted. If they sit in the ground sulking and wilting it's not out of spite. The fact that they linger at all, thrusting out pale, fragile shoots, is a sign that they are trying their best, under difficult circumstances, to survive.

If a plant wilts and wanes, or sits and stagnate, it is more likely the fault of the gardener than that of the plant. The gardener is not listening to what the plant is saying. And plants do talk, in a very nonverbal way. For instance, when they shrivel or wilt, this usually means, in plant-talk, 'I'm thirsty.' Yellow leaves are often a code for 'I'm hungry.' Or 'I'm drowning.' Spots and holes mean there is a problem with insects or disease. If we pay attention to our plants, and take care of them them the way we would a pet, or a family member, they would respond gratefully, and begin to thrive again. Ignore them, and the malady can be fatal. Worse still, it could be contagious.

Say your rose bush breaks out in a rash. Little black spots all over the leaves. What do spots mean when they appear on you? You're sick! Same with that rosebush - it has blackspot, which, if you happen to be a nearby rosebush, means you're in danger of getting the same ugly rash. Treat it - or lose it! Rosarian Mark Whitelaw points out that strange spots, holes or colors in plant leaves are symptoms of plant problems, just as they are of people problems. They communicate something. So figure out what it's saying and then take appropriate action. The Texas Handbook of Plant Diseases may be of some help.

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