Not Dead Yet

A branch of a Plumeria / Frangipani tree washed onto our dock in a storm. I put it in the ground of our garden, expecting nothing.

Now it is thriving. 

Here is a picture of the plant with the words "not dead yet".

Never underestimate things that are battered or broken down by the storms of life. Plant it somewhere new. It may die back, but then it may return stronger than ever.

Not Dead Yet

Here we learn one of the basic principles of plant pathology. A pathogen cannot take over a plant if the environment is not suited for the disease. Take a diseased plant away from one place, give it different lighting, different air flow, different soil. It may recover. 

Connection to the International Space Station

Space gardeners learned this lesson with the Zinnia plants that kept Scott Kelly smiling during his Year in Space. The fans weren't quite working as expected in the plant hardware. Moisture built up in the system. An opportunistic pathogen took over and ravaged some of the plants. When they increased the fan speed on the Veggie hardware the airflow over the leaf area changed, and some of the less affected plants were able to thrive.

Here is a Zinnia flower grown on Earth during a follow up study. These were grown from the seeds harvested from the plants that grew in space.