My college buddies and I capped the reunion with a sleep over at the host's place. The next day, I asked one of them to drop me off at the Manila Seedling Bank. The green spot at the corner of Quezon Avenue and Edsa has become one of my guilty pleasures. I can't help but channel the Martha Stewart in me every time I go there.
The rest of the afternoon was spent putting the Basils and Mints on plastic pots I bought at Uni-Top. However, I ran out of soil, so I asked the next-door neighbor if I could dig the earth on one of her unused pots. She gave her permission. But the pot I dug was not entirely unoccupied. Kept in a shade and watered only by the passing rain, life struggles to assert its presence with an Oregano stem struggling to grow roots despite its failure to make sunshine-catching leaves.
I pulled out the Oregano and emptied the pot of soil. I could have thrown the stem away, but the Oregano came from the same mother plant which I used to grow some years ago. It was among the casualties when a new hobby took my time.
So I ran out of soil and used the earth from the unused pot belonging to a neighbor. When I found the Oregano, I thought of throwing it away. However, since I don't have the herb in my garden; and by stroke of luck, I discovered a plastic bag of clay soil among the sacks of concrete used as flood barrier, I filled the empty pot with dirt. I then poked a hole on its surface and replanted the Oregano stem.
Sitting outside my window, I intend to make the Oregano grow. Who knows, the herb might finally break the spell and let me resurrect nearly-dead plants back to its living form - like I used to - when I obsessed about gardening as a kid.