Someone rescues abandoned dogs and cats. Well, our family rescues abandoned … plants. This happened for the first time two and a half years ago. A neighbor, moving, left a lemon in a tub on the landing. It was in January. The southern handsome man, abandoned in the cold entrance, was dying before our eyes.
- No, I can't see it anymore! - said my daughter, and she and her husband dragged the lemon to our apartment.
The tub was old, wooden, large and very heavy; it took up a lot of space in the apartment. But the tree reminded me of a lemon from childhood, which once grew on our loggia and was covered with beautiful golden fruits every year. In the summer, I took him with me to the dacha. I found a place protected from the wind for him next to the barn.
And under the sun, in the fresh air, the lemon really blossomed. He spread the old branches, released several new ones, which were covered with shiny dark green leaves. And soon he had a close friend. I don't know whether the bird dropped a grain from above, or the wind brought it. But right in the tub next to the lemon, a maple sprout suddenly appeared. And Lemon, apparently, liked this friend very much. Because next to the maple, he blossomed even more.
Their coexistence lasted all summer. And then in September there was a fire, the shed, which had a tub of lemon, burned down. We remembered about lemon only after the fire, and we rushed to it in fright. Thank God, neither the lemon nor the maple was harmed. Their trunks were intact. But from the intense heat of the lemon, the leaves were burnt and curled up into tubes.
“Poor fellow,” I thought, putting the lemon in order, “at first they threw you in the entrance, and now it's so stressful.” We threw away the tub and bought a new, nicer container for the lemon. The maple was transplanted to the site, and the lemon was taken home.
At home, I took care of the plant, and it survived the winter safely. And the next summer, I again took him to the country. And she put it back in its original place, next to the already new shed. And then the lemon, which had been beautifully green all winter, suddenly began to wither before our eyes. His leaves shriveled again and curled up into tubes.
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What did I not do to revive him! But the lemon was fading more and more. Until I figured out to rearrange it to another place - closer to the maple tree, which managed to grow and turned into a slender tree. And the plant instantly came to life and turned green again. Did the lemon remember what happened last summer - both the fire and his friend?
Another incident happened after we moved to a new apartment a few years later. It was winter again. One of the neighbors left two plants in the entrance, they froze on the windowsill until the daughter brought them home.
The plants were stunted and unkempt, no matter how hard we tried, they still looked sick and drooping. But when in the summer I took them to the dacha, there, in the fresh air, one of these plants suddenly released several leaves, and then bloomed magnificently with wonderful white lilies. And after a while, another plant, which stood nearby, also gave flowers.
Now I look at our foundlings: Amazonian lily and clivia (I later learned their names), lemon, other house plants and I think: why, for example, our geraniums and azaleas, when they stand nearby, bloom violently with white and red flowers, but if you separate them, the flowers fall off? Although we have in another pot another exactly the same white geranium. But azalea reacts only to "its" plant.
Is this really love? Why, when I moved the violet to put a new plant in this place, it immediately stopped blooming? Although they moved her quite a bit. Really offended? Why, when I wanted to give the aloe to other hands, I immediately needed aloe juice myself. Do plants really understand something?
Valentina TITKOVA, Magazine "Non-fictional stories" №11
