For those of you that don’t know this, jade plants are paramount to accumulating wealth and good fortune.

Having grown in up rural Wisconsin, the only plants we would grow when I was a kid, was a fern or one of those indoor palm trees. So needless to say, I was not aware of the superstition associated with the accumulation and prosperity of this plant. The more healthy jade plants you have, the better chance you have of winning the lottery or not contracting leprosy from an armadillo.

Well in Austin Texas, we don’t really have a winter as much as we have these cold spells that blow in and drop the temperature about 50 degrees in a couple of hours. These freezes will kill any plants that are sensitive to weather in the 30 degree Fahrenheit range and as my luck would have it, jade happens to be one of these sensitive plants. Hooray!

Before I fully understood that along with my being the landscaper, Sherpa and IT professional in the household, I was also the family botanist and therefore responsible for the well-being of the 100 plus plants that adorn our patio and house perimeter.

First let me say that taking care of these plants does bring me joy and a sense of inner peace. But, along with this responsibility, comes the “oh my god the weather guy says it is going to freeze and all hell is going to break out!” mentality that I didn’t possess in my first winter as these plant’s sole protector and guardian. This was my first mistake. Oh yes and a big mistake it was my friends. I woke up on a Sunday morning all happy go lucky with a skip in my step to slowly descend into the pit of death and destruction that can only be qualified as the “Jade Massacre of 2010”. This damn cold front had blown in late the Saturday night before and all that was left was the grey gooey droopy remnants of my once green and proud jade plants.

I was informed that I had doomed the family to poverty and destitution with my carelessness and I spent the rest of day walking around ashamed and depressed. This is another scenario that I will never forget and one that makes Dad loco.

-Dad