Penny Carnathan

Penny’s a Nurture And Hold (NAH): Nah, I won’t pull that out yet, it’s still got a green shoot. She likes dragonflies, lady bugs and new stuff only after weeding, pruning and fertilizing.

Kim Franke-Folstad

Kim’s a Want It Now (WIN): Everything pretty, everything now. She will resort to full-spectrum insecticides in desperate situations, and believes it’s her duty and right to buy new plants every weekend.

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I love a mystery! [The Case of the Curious Kalanchoe]

Posted Sep 23, 2009 by Kim Franke-Folstad

Updated Sep 23, 2009 at 03:58 PM

I’ll call this “The Mystery of the Soda Cans in the Pot from Penny.”

Hmmm ... not too catchy. Maybe “The Case of the Curious Kalanchoe.”

Here’s what happened:

On Saturday morning, my husband, Rick, came in from the backyard with big news: He’d found two soda cans in one of the pots on the deck. One Coke, one Sprite.

How did those get there, he wondered aloud.

Hmmm … how indeed? No one in our house drinks Coke or Sprite. But there they were, he said, two soda cans in the pot Penny gave me for my birthday. (This was a clue. But we didn’t know it then.)

Had the Saturday night poker game gotten crazy? Had the boys dumped a couple of cans in the planter and forgotten they were there?

Uh, no. The poker players drink beer, and only beer.

Maybe the pool guy, who had been there that morning, had a beverage or two, and dumped the cans in the pot, we thought. But that was unlikely. He is a stellar young fellow who wouldn’t leave such a mess.

A creepy feeling started to settle in. Had some strangers been in our yard? A couple of kids who maybe used the pool while we slept, and left their empties (and who knew what else) behind?  Should we start having the dog sleep outside on random nights to scare away unwanted visitors?

No again. It rained Friday. No one would have partied in the pool that night.

We felt like detectives – Nick and Nora Charles – as we tried out one theory after the next. But we were getting nowhere.

In the meantime, there was gardening to do. During the “investigation,” I noticed the kalanchoe Penny had planted in the birthday pot seemed to be sinking – though the plant has been growing like crazy, it seemed to be inches lower in the pot. I figured all the rain had washed out some of the soil. It’s a concrete planter, without drainage holes, and I decided the pot had filled with water that poured out over the sides – along with much of the potting soil Penny put in there.

So I carried the whole thing over to my potting bench and prepared to fill it with more soil. I carefully pulled out the kalanchoe and … guess what I found?

Another Coke can and another Sprite can.

Guess who drinks Coke and Sprite?

Penny’s family.

When she planted the kalanchoe back in July, it was so small, she did what a lot of gardeners do (including yours truly): She put four crumpled soda cans in the bottom of the pot to take up some space, keep the weight of the pot down and help with drainage.

When the rain poured into the pot, it washed the soil away and revealed two of the cans.

Mystery solved.

I need a drink.