“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
My whole collection at the peak
Struggle and Suffering
Struggle is a part of everyday life. It comes and goes in various aspects. They say when it rains it pours. But I really just amount that to issues often being put off. When it poured for me, it was my fault for being reckless. I should have put more thought into it beforehand.
I had tried to start a plant business and was in the process of having them grown for clone production. At the time of the photo with my full collection, I had recently put them all into self-watering containers. I had gone on Reddit to brag and show off. Scrolling through the feed there seemed to be something off and I had seen some weird posts about a disease outbreak. My gears turned for a few moments, imagine just two because that's how many brain cells I have. ANDDDD That was my ‘Oh shit’ moment, pardon my language. The sense of dread as I read post after post of collections being infected was disheartening.
You can't always tell infected plants just by viewing them, odds are at the time of this photo there were at least two infected plants in the photo
Diseased Plants
The more I read about this disease, a virus specifically, the more I knew it was over for my plants. I was distraught. Is my collection infected? How do I prevent it? It looks like it’s permanent. Then I saw the kicker… the company I bought my collection from was the one spreading it! So my entire collection could be infected. How great is that?! I can’t sell infected plants like them! I looked into the tests for my plants and they cost almost as much as the plant itself! I was furious. I wanted to get a refund. I wanted to do a lot of things but ultimately I didn't take my vengeance against them. I just simply didn’t want to give up on my collection. But I did have to give up. I threw my entire collection into the trash. Those tear-filled moments of my loved and cared-for plant babies just being tossed away like they were nothing hurt a lot.
Here is my violet before I process them. I'll make a post describing that soon.
Starting Over
This time more carefully and with a new supplier. It’s a shame. Though, I have become more knowledgeable because of this. I learned a lot about myself and plants. That major business blunder by that company was a lesson as well. What if my plants become infected, how do I prevent it, what can I do to take precautions? All these questions were things I needed to ask myself.
After I took a break from my collection, I started over with my plants. They number in the single digits compared to my rapidly expanding collection before. But I am well satisfied with them. When I start amassing clones for selling, I will get those tests and occasionally test the mother plants. Since the clones will carry the disease if the mother is infected, I only have to test a few a couple times a year. Then I was going over ideas of having multiple violet purveyors so that a single source screw-up won’t wipe out my entire collection. I have plenty of ideas of how to fix the situation so that what happened before never happens again.
One of my newest plants, I only have six of them right now. This is post processing, you can see how drastic of a difference it is.
Learning can be Painful
Lessons can be learned and if they aren’t, you are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. I can’t be mad at the universe or that business for that horrible experience. I should be able to trust a business to sell me quality but ultimately it was my fault for starting that way without learning a lot about different types of strategies for a business. I know how to grow and sell, but I was sorely lacking in the supply acquisition and disease categories of the plants. Having that new information will aid me going forward in how to NOT do that fiasco again. It was not fun. But just like learning to ride a bike, or climb a tree, sometimes you fail and get hurt. It's a necessary part of learning lessons.
Here's a photo of all the flowers of my newest plants. When I process plants, I remove all the flowers. It can make for some pretty photos
We can all learn from our mistakes. But just like the history quote from George Santayana.
“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
As always, thanks for listening to my story and me rambling about stuff. I always appreciate every interaction, no matter how small it may be. I love the Hive community and all of you who put effort into making it a good place to be in. Have a good one, thanks so much!
If you've read this far, I would enjoy any follows and will follow back. I want to build a community of love and kindness. We all deserve that.
All photos in this post are taken by me using any of the following:
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 12 Pro Max
Nikon D800 and a Macro Lense