Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 8:05 — 5.3MB) | Embed
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, I’m a bit of a grammar nazi, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a lesson I learned from my flowers.
I’m pretty sure that one thing you and I have in common is that we hate slow computers. I just upgraded my production hard drive to a solid state drive and I’m loving the blazing speed. The truth is, speed matters and time is money. Whether you need to upgrade your hard drive, system memory, or your whole computer, before you lay down your hard earned money, check out the great folks at MacMall. I purchased my 27” iMac from them last year and I’m glad I did. I got the exact configuration I wanted, I paid less that I would have from Apple, AND I got faster shipping too. They even had the ability to hook me up with Apple Care. Visit www.goldenspiralmedia.com/MacMall for more info.
Friday Forum
Friday Forum is your opportunity to Share what YOU’VE learned, so that other listeners and I can learn from YOU. It can be a message as short as 30 seconds or several minutes long. It really doesn’t matter just as long as it’s something that will benefit others. You can participate in Friday Forum by calling and leaving a message at 304-837-2278, emailing an audio file to feedback@goldenspiralmedia.com, or clicking on the Send Voicemail tab on my website, GoldenSpiralMedia.com.
What I Learned Yesterday:
Well, I warned you. I told you there would be more episodes coming about my flower bed project. In case you don’t remember, both my wife and I are terrible at trying to keep plants alive. This year we recruited our green thumb neighbor, Mandy, to help us. I’ve been really working to stay on top of the flower beds and keep my plants thriving.
I know absolutely nothing about gardening or flower bedding or whatever it’s called. I’ve looked it up a dozen times, but I’m still not sure if annuals or perennials are the ones that come back each year. I’m a total novice at this stuff.
Fortunately, Mandy really digs it. (pun intended) I go out every single day to check on my plants. I usually go out 2 or 3 times each day and look at them. I love to go out there first thing in the morning with a fresh cup of coffee and enjoy the cool of the morning with their splashes of color greeting me. The morning light and temperature has a very different effect on the plants than the midday sun and heat does. They look different in the way the colors look and the blooms are open wider during the sunnier times. During the evening the blooms are still wide open and beautiful.
Much to my disappointment, a few weeks ago many of my plants began to wither. The blooms shriveled up, the leaves sagged, and they just kind of sputtered. I went to the store and purchased some Miracle Grow. I read the instructions very carefully, but the plants did not respond the way I envisioned.
I thought that the plants would roar back to life and bulk up like an angry Bruce Banner. The morning after I first sprayed them I grabbed my morning coffee, and headed out the front door to see what changes awaited me. It looked the same as the day before. Day after day I went outside, and day after day they looked the same. I double checked the Miracle Grow label to make sure I was doing things properly, and confirmed that I was following the instructions correctly.
A week or so after I began the Miracle Grow treatment I finally had a breakthrough. It had nothing to do with the Miracle Grow. I came outside with my morning coffee to see how my flowers were faring. They looked just like they had. Sad. Droopy. No new buds. The old buds were dead.
As I looked at them in disbelief I heard a noise from across the yard. I turned around to identify the sound and it was Mandy. She was working away in her flower beds. Somehow I hadn’t noticed her when I came outside. I greeted her and told her that her flowers were looking great. She thanked me and complimented my flowers. I told her that I was disappointed with them and was afraid that they were all dying.
Mady got up from her flowers and came over to mine. She took one look at them and exclaimed that my flowers weren’t dying. They were in good shape. I told her that all the blooms had died and now they were just saggy green leaves with dead buds. She reached down and began snapping off the dead buds. Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap.
She got caught up in the moment and it took her a moment to realize that she had just jumped into snapping off bits of my flowers. She stopped and apologized. She said she was a bit OCD about snapping off the shriveled buds. She said that snapping them off would help the plants. Apparently they will continue to put energy toward the shriveled buds and they won’t produce new ones. However, if the shriveled buds and stems are cut off, the plant will put its energy toward making new fresh buds.
I knew that pruning bushes and trees was something that could be beneficial, but I had no idea that you should prune flowers by snapping off the shriveled up buds. To be honest, I’m not at all clear on when it’s best to prune bushes and trees. I really am a novice at this stuff.
Here’s what I learned.
After Mandy showed me how to get rid of the wilted buds, I went and grabbed my daughter, Addison. Addison and I spent the next 15 minutes snapping off the bad stuff. I also went and got some pruning shears that I have for some odd reason, and I got rid of a few stems.
The next morning I got my coffee, went out to the flower beds and saw no change. The second day I grabbed my coffee, went out to the flower beds and saw no change. The third day I grabbed my coffee, went out to the flower beds…and saw a few new buds on some of the plants. The next day there were a few more buds, and the day after that there were even more buds. Some of the first buds were now full fledged flowers! By the end of the week there was new growth on nearly every plant. One plant had over a dozen new flowers!
I had an epiphany moment. Not only did I learn a very practical lesson about gardening, but I learned a bit about life in the process. I’ve been really trying to take time to evaluate each thing that I do to fill my time. I’m not only looking at the things I do, but the processes I do to fulfill each task. Some of the tasks I do are like those dead buds. I keep putting energy into them, but they aren’t really giving me anything productive in return.
I know I’m not alone. I bet we all have stuff in our lives or things that we do that don’t really bring us a good return on the energy we expend doing them. Not only do they not give us a good return on the energy we’re expending, they’re preventing us from producing something that is worthwhile. What’s the best solution? Snap those things off! Get them out and allow something more worthwhile to fill that space.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday, I would be grateful if you’d leave a review in iTunes.
[sc:stuff]