Prior to Mother’s Day, I was hatching an idea for a surprise for Mom. She has recently gotten back into gardening again, and has a healthy collection of potted flowering and non-flowering plants on our balcony. Dad likes to nag her about buying plants, so I thought it would be nice if she could blame it on me for buying them.

I found a site that had an option of three potted miniature roses, and ordered them promptly for delivery on Mother’s Day. Unfortunately, on Saturday night, they informed me that it would take two days for them to get the plants! Pretty annoying… Why did they not state that on the site? They tried to convince me to switch to a bouquet of cut flowers, which I refused and asked for a refund. Was it just a sale tactic to force people into buying something from them? Not impressed.

So, Sunday morning, I woke up super early to try to make alternative plans. I rang another nursery, and was pleasantly surprised that they not only had the miniature roses, they could even deliver within two hours! I was stoked. The delivery went smoothly, including a ninja mission where I met the delivery guy downstairs to make the payment first, so Mom doesn’t know how much I’m paying. The pots of roses were beautifully wrapped, and Mom was happy.

However! Upon closer look, the pink rose plant did not seem to be doing well. I only noticed it was slightly droopy at first. But after about three hours, it was obviously dying. Every flower and leaf had turned downwards. I rang the nursery and was told to water it. That seemed strange because the soil seemed wet. Mom had gone out for her choir class, and when she came back in the evening, we inspected the plant again and she pointed out that the stems and roots were all dark. The plant was probably sick well beforehand.

The next day, the red rose plant appeared to be starting to droop as well. I rang the nursery again, told them the problem, and said we would be happy to take the plants to them for an exchange, to which they agreed.

It turned out to be a rather fun excursion for Mom and bB. She was like a kid in a candy store. We poked around all the nurseries there, exchanged the sick rose plants for two healthy, happy ones, and also brought home a tiny pot of miniature orchids.

They did not have any more red rose plants, so we picked a dark pink and a baby pink. They are gorgeous! And doing extremely well! So it turned out to be a blessing in disguise!

We also had a lot of fun repotting them into proper, bigger, more comfy pots. Both pots consist of several small plants in each, and the darker pink plants were all growing sideways in their original pot. So it was a bit of effort to separate them and replant properly. Totally worth it though. They are absolutely flourishing now.

It has always been difficult to get Mom any pressies because she has always lived simply and doesn’t like luxury goods. It is even difficult getting her to go out for a meal! But now, I have endless options of gorgeous plants to get her!

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bB