RIVER CITY JOURNAL: FLOWERS SPEAK THE WORDS OFTEN LEFT UNSAID

On Valentine's Day, a man's thoughts turn to ready-made bouquets. A woman likes to think he actually made a choice.

It's hard to tell if plants have brains, but somehow the poinsettia that has graced the kitchen island since before Christmas understood that Lent started this week. After weeks of lush beauty, the bright red foliage began to scatter on the tile floor, leaving playthings for the cat whose store-bought toys are of no interest whatsoever.

The fact that the poinsettia stayed in mint condition for so long is a credit to the affinity my wife has for house plants. Yes, she talks to them. And caresses them. And gets them high on plant food, turning the leafy creatures into fertilizer junkies.

Most plants thrive on attention. With a little care, most things that grow indoors can be kept alive for years. But to make a spindly plant in dire need of massive Rogaine treatments thrive -- that takes a special talent.

When we visit friends, it's kind of embarrassing the way we behave. I go around straightening whatever is hanging on the walls. My wife fusses over the yellowing leaves on surviving house plants. We make quite a team, even if our efforts aren't always appreciated.

Once we had dinner at the home of friends whose only house plant was dying in a living room where the drapes were never opened. The soil, my wife quickly discovered, was bone dry. Apparently the plant had been surviving on humidity. My wife scolded our hostess, displaying her feelings for underprivileged plants. "I just can't grow house plants," the contrite woman said. "Nonsense," retorted her husband. "All they need is sunlight and water -- and you don't give them either."

And love. My wife certainly would add love to the mix for a plant's happy life.

At one time we had a small greenhouse on the back of our home. It became filled with exotic plants adopted by our older son. He was big on cacti and other succulents then. And he took in strange plants from the biology department of a nearby state university. As a matter of fact, we have the only living offspring (at least on this continent) of a tropical plant that grew 15 or so feet high in the lobby of that university's science building. We still have the youngster, now some five feet tall. It's expected to bloom sometime in the next 20 or 30 years. How can you get rid of a plant that may or may not bloom before you die?

And there are the hanging plants that look like the product of too much inbreeding. As foliage goes, these plants need plastic surgery in the worst possible way. But you know how it is in the real world. Out of such dismal ugliness comes the most exquisite beauty. We found this out when we moved to Topeka a few years ago. Leaving the greenhouse behind, we didn't know what to do with the ugly plants.

It was June in Kansas. (Remember? Corn as high as an elephant's eye?) "Put them under the eaves on the patio," my wife said. As ugly as these plants were, they had never been exposed to the elements. I worried that they would perish, and I secretly hoped for natural euthanasia that would end their miserable existence. My wife, of course, cooed to them just like she would a philodendron.

Late one evening in July, we noticed an unusual appendage had popped out on one of the plant's tendrils. "Looks like a bloom pod," I suggested. Even later, after it was completely dark, I went out on the patio to call the cat in. Lo and behold, the bloom pod was opening. Over the next half-hour, the delicate white spines of a gorgeous blossom spread until it was as wide as a dinner plate. We all stood there in the dark with flashlights unable to find words to describe such beauty.

The next morning, the blossom was withered. It fell to the concrete during the day.

Several more times over the years the ugly plants have bloomed, always at night, always with great drama. And the blooms have always been gone by morning.

On this Valentine's Day, flowers are the messenger of choice for most men who want to say "I love you" but too rarely speak the words. It is the one day out of the year when your wife doesn't want another sick plant to nurse. This is the day when a dozen roses, their ruby red petals just beginning to open up, bear tidings of love. Or tulips with tight buds ready to burst open -- they can speak volumes too.

Some men find that chocolates and diamonds give them an edge on this day for lovers. Go ahead, fellas, if you want. But most women would be touched more deeply by your choice of roses in dusty yellow or smoky pink. You know, something that shows you were paying attention when the florist handed you the bill.

Daffodils. That's my wife's soft spot. But try to find them in February. Sometimes they aren't available even for her birthday next month.

Plain red roses? No, for the lady who loves plants -- and me -- the flowers must show consideration as much as fragile loveliness. The message, after all, is that you care, not that you can afford a dozen roses.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.