I started an after school program at a school this past summer. I volunteered every M, W, and F morning for just over 3 months. All was going well so I backed out and away in favor of the kids taking over under the supervision of the teacher which is the way it should be. The Christmas break was upon us and the teacher and I spoke to the head janitor and it was agreed the heat would remain on in the south wing of the school as opposed to being turned down to 45. The teacher said she was going to come in every morning to make sure all the trays were filled with water and such. All was well.
Just before Christmas break, I took photos of how well the plants were doing and shared them with a few 4H groups, Scout groups, and two other schools that were interested in starting similar programs. The teacher extended an invitation to any group interested to stop on in after the holidays to see their set up.
The head janitor went on vacation and one of the two remaining janitors took it upon himself to shut down a few boilers to drop the temps to 45 in the whole school as was customary for the past x number of years. The other remaining janitor thought nothing of this and he too left for vacation.
The teacher was not in a position to do anything at all as the head janitor was the only one licensed and certified to start up the boilers and he was gone. The plants were hanging in there with space heaters until another one of her relatives died and a member from the Church offered to check in on the plants and saw the space heaters and deemed them a fire hazard and shut them off. The plants went without being watered for oh... about 5 days and she honestly didn't think to call me and the parishioner didn't know me to call me.
Lemme see, we lost all of the plants from BobZ (I need to add that BobZ TOLD me nicely to consider keeping some of the plants at my home... just in case… but did I do that
nooooooooo).
-All of the plants from sarraceniaobsessed save the few that required a dormancy which are in the teacher's garage right now and my guess is they are being gassed to death from exhaust fumes from her car.
-All of the plants from Rattler (I do have a few Utrics of his here at my house).
-All of the plants and gemmae from Copper.
-And all of the plants from 0zzy.
I take that back... the non cp "Love plants" from ozzy came back to life. The school also has the seed to work with that was being cold stratified in the frig in the teacher's lounge as well as 4 trays that I am germinating for them here at home so at least they will get the D. filiformis 'All Red' which germinated quite nicely as well as some nice little Sarr seedlings.
Originally, I thought it was carelessness that trashed the 30 plants the school had. My take was that over the break they figured a day or so without water wouldn't make a big difference. I had no idea the boilers were shut down and that space heaters were in there or that the teacher lost her Dad over the break after just having lost her grandfather. I must admit I just found that out and for the past month I was absolutely livid to the point that I made myself scarce and told them that I'd help them work back up from scratch with the seed they were germinating.
So, glad I took all those photos before Christmas to SHARE with other groups to get them all psyched.
In a few hours I leave for vacation and we hired a seminary student and his wife to stay in our home while we are gone to feed our cats and water my plants and seedlings. We had to board our dogs because the little lady said she was afraid of them. Good, more time for them to remember to water my plants. I’ve gone over how to water the plants with her now at least 5x to the point she is exercising restraint in not choking me. I was feeling pretty good about everything until I read this thread thinking nothing could go wrong and that I deserved a break after the squirrel and feral cat fiasco of last fall. Here's hoping I get that break or everyone will be hearing the screams all the way from Illinois when I get back. Does that make you feel better Tre? Everyone all at once now… “Laura’s plants & seedlings & seeds are horrible, rotten, nasty, very bad, ugly, gross, and they suck.”