Rescue Botany.

There are two types of plants on Mother Earth that I can keep alive. One is a philodendron, which helpfully wilts when it needs water. The other is a jade plant which can seemingly go months without water (or at least wait until I catch up with the philodendron).

Passing the floral section of the grocery store the other day, I felt compelled to stop at the potted plant display. There, on the $3.99 rack, was the most pitiful jade plant I had ever seen. Its succulent leaves, normally deep green, smooth and rubbery, were shriveled and coursed with wrinkles.

"It needs me," I told my husband as I placed it on the cashier's conveyor belt.

Repotting it was very easy -- it had been so long since it had been watered that the cheap plastic pot fell off it when I grasped the base of the plant. I put it into a nice terra cotta pot and gave it a very gentle shower in the kitchen sink.

It's sitting in front of me at the moment, here on the computer desk, and it looks much happier. It's not fully recovered, by any means, but the wrinkles are mostly gone, as the leaves fill with moisture again.

Somewhere I have an article on plant familiars. I wonder if perhaps this one is now mine.