April Wamhoff

When I leave in the spring and fall, to wait out the ice and water conditions, I must look like Granny Clampett, riding on her rocking chair, strapped down with all of her belongs on the top of the 1922-23 flatbed truck. I take everything that I consider essential for both me and the dogs, now three strong, in the boat, snowmobile, or the side-by-side. Here’s the deal though, I gotta draw the line somewhere. Some things just have to stay on the island. And that something is my plants.
Now I have never been a green thumb. Oh, I’ve had an outdoor flowerbed or two at the island, and a couple of hanging plants that require a slosh of water occasionally. Their life expectancy is the summer though and then they do me the favor of dying and thus require no further care. Just don’t get attached to them and you’re okay.
My mom, now she’s the green thumb. Houseplants and all. Well, that’s where the trouble started. She started having difficulty taking care of her plants a few years ago. I’d take one or two out to the island occasionally to lighten the load for her. No promises on their survival, of course, and I called them the refugees.
And much to my surprise, they started doing well and some of them even graced me with a flower blossom or two. Huh, who woulda thunk? A teeny bit of a green thumb, maybe? By the end of the summer I had quite a few house plants gracing my deck, and I started looking at some of what I considered to be limited life outdoor plants in a new light. They are expensive to replace every year and maybe they didn’t need to die off in the winter.
Then came time for ice over and time to leave for a bit. What to do now? I surely wasn’t going to boat them out to the mainland and bring them back. And how? On the snowmobile? The first year I ordered an automatic waterer that watered 15 plants from a five-gallon bucket and left them in front of the window. I even brought in a few of the outdoor plants. No harm in trying to save them, right? And they did okay, even well. The Christmas cactus bloomed for the first time in years. Well, I’ll be….
So, who am I to argue with that kind of success? The refugees keep coming as my mom has trouble keeping up. Last fall, I bought two more waterers and even took some cuttings from outside plants I couldn’t bring in. They’ve taken over three large windows in the cabin, and I have grow lights where I don’t think they get quite enough light. They are truly lovely, and they bring a little hope of springtime and renewal to a sometimes-bleak landscape.
They will stay on the island, though, and wait out the lake conditions without me. Thing is, they do well without me. Really well. So, the green thumb thing? Not so much. I think they like it when I’m gone. And I guess that’s good. I’d hate to have to strap them to the top of the snowmobile.