Desert Organics

This weekend my significant other’s brother stayed over.  Its not so bad that he choose to stay with us.  The bad part was the complete lack of respect for my personal space.

When he saw my patio set up the first thing he did was ask for cuttings, or atleast I assume he was asking for cuttings.  But now that I think about it, in his weird way he was stating he was taking cuttings.  With an area roughly 200 square feet, I have over 200 species of plants.  I made it clear that with temperatures above 110 I did not want to stress my plants out. Especially after losing plants from the heat already such as my Eucalyptus and Lambs Ear.  I have also had to bring indoors some plants in hopes that they recover in side.

So instead he asked my significant other if he could get cuttings, twice he was refereed back to me.  Being told that those plants were my dominion.

At which point he choose to mess with some of my plants indoors, ones that were pulled in from outside in hopes of recovering.  He had the nerve to tell me that my Crown of Thorns needed more light, having no idea it was pulled inside two days before. It was at the point where he decided to start pressing in soil on one of my house plants I asked him to not mess with my plants. As it really is a pet peeve of mine when people try to do the maintenance on my plants.  Like my pets, my plants are my children.  After which he pointed to one of my house plants, and ask what it was. I did not know what it was, and he made some smart ass comment about not knowing what my plant was.  I don’t claim to be an expert botanist, but considering I have had this plant that I do not know what it is for 4 years, and it is healthy I must be doing something right.

Many of my plants that can be grown from cuttings I would like to keep in a prestine condition.  Which means I want no scarring from cuttings.  If any cuttings are to be taken, I want to be the one that does it.  After all who wants their plant to be turned into an eye sore?

Now if you know anything about starting a cactus from a cutting, the one thing you never do is take a fresh cutting and plant it in the ground.  Which has also been my experience with some succulent cuttings.  You usually wait a week and in one case I had to wait 2 months for the plant to scar over.   Trust me waiting 2 months was well worth it.  He did not wait for these cactus to scar over, instead he picked out one of my ceramic pots and some of my potting soil (soil that was not proper for a cactus) and planted all the cutting he had taken without my permission.  He also did not ask for the pot.

It was hours before he was going to go to his parents house, as I grudgingly awaited for him to go.  He had to exercise first, so he reorganized my exercise equipment so he could stare out the patio door (perhaps to see what else to cut), and no he did not put everything back where he got it.

Saturday came around and I went out to shop away my stress.  I have to say most of my anger had melted away when I found a Saguaro.  This is one of many native plants on my list.  Never mind I may not be alive to see it flower, especially since its less then 2 feet tall.  As an olive branch I bought a Oreocererus celsian for the butt head. As he wanted to get a cutting off mine, which will never happen.  So as I was repotting new plants, and some cactus that I had waited to scar over and watering my collection I found a terracotta pot that he decided to draw a face on.  Ok so it was one that I got from the .99 store, but the plant that was in it was not a .99 cent plant.

So how would you feel if someone, who is supposed to be a guest decided to deface part of your property?  My anger from yesterday was back and bigger then before.  No he is not getting the cactus I bought.  For the first time I now have two of a single species of cactus.  He is also going to give me my pot back and he can have this one he decided to deface.  What kind of an adult does this to someone else’s stuff?