A coconut tree short of a pina colada

A couple of months ago, at least it seems like that long ago, my parents had this seed and plant catalog at their house. Looking through it, I found a pineapple plant. I dog earred the page, circled the pineapple and said, "if you order anything, order me a pineapple plant."

I know both of my parents heard me say this. They were in the room. I spoke it out loud. I kind of made a to-do about it. As usual, they weren't listening.

Pineapple is my favorite fruit. And my house is done in pineapples and palm trees (and yes the purple works too), so I am obsessed with them.

Two weeks later, maybe less, they started talking about all these plants they ordered. I asked if they ordered my pineapple plant. Huh? What? We were supposed to order you something? Sigh.

A few weeks after that, their plants still had not arrived, so I told them I would order my own and I bet mine would get there first. Now did not think I would get a full size plant with a pineapple growing on it, but though it would be a decent size.

Fast forward to Saturday. Dad was whacking the world's largest variety of weeds garden, aka my mini back yard. I went out front to get the mail. Inside the small mailbox was a green plastic bag. I pull it out and note that the seed company is on the return address.

As walk back up the sidewalk, Dad looked over the fence to ask me something. wave my bag and say, "guess what this is. My pineapple plant."

"NAH!!!," he says.


I open the package and pull out a small plant with some cardboard around it with a couple of broken frond-like leaves protruding from the top. It was pitiful. It barely made it through the US Postal Service in that flimsy plastic bag.

Well, regardless, I needed some potting soil to plant it. And a new water hose since my last one had so many holes it would give you a shower to water anything. So, I went to Home Depot. Besides, Christi had told me a couple of days before she had seen a pineapple plant out there recently. I was going to look for an upgrade.

What I found instead was a banana tree that had been beaten my the rain, wind and hail earlier in the week. I decided I needed it.



It looks a little sad right now too. When I told Dad I bought a banana tree, he says, "do you have a coconut? You could have a pina colada."

I've yet to find a coconut palm. He firmly believes I am going to grow bananas and that the pineapple plant that is supposedly easy to grow and hearty is going to flourish. We'll see.

Comments

Speechless said…
Mark is always planting pineapple plants. They drive me crazy. Every time we buy a pineapple, he wacks off the top part and sticks it in a jar of water. When it begins growing roots, he plants them in a pot with soil. They have never grown any pineapples, but they make pretty plants. I always know that if I buy a pineapple, we are getting another pineapple plant.