Not all plant finds turn out to be wonderful additions to the horticultural pallet.

This Douglas fir, for example...  

I was a special ed teacher for several years.  I had a class full of kids with high functioning autism and Asperger Syndrome.  As part of our weekly routine, we would go to the local coffee shop on Friday mornings.  I always swore to coworkers that if the district ever took away those coffee trips, I would quit.  One year, they closed my classroom and moved me to a school where I couldn't do those coffee trips.

When I swear, I fucking mean it, bitches.

I quit that motherfucking job.  (It is, of course, much more complicated than those little coffee trips- but the loss of that time to enjoy the company of those kids factored in heavily.  They were some of the coolest people I've had the pleasure of knowing.)

I digress.  Every Friday, about half-way to the coffee shop, I would check out this sickly little Doug fir seedling in the landscaping of an apartment complex.  Finally one spring, one of my assistants finally said "Oh, just dig it up already.  It is going to get pulled out by the landscape maintenance people."

Yeah...  like I need encouragement to do that.

We had the kids walk ahead so they wouldn't know what I was doing- I didn't want to set a bad example, after all.  Of course... we are talking about pretty sharp kids here- I think they all knew exactly what I did.  I can't remember what I used to get it out of the soil- it wasn't that big, so I didn't need to dig that deeply.  I guzzled the rest of my mocha and stashed it in the paper cup.

This pic was taken about a year after I had collected it.  I babied it and kept it in the shade, which prevented the white/yellow coloring from being expressed.  it looked like a normal green doug fir.  The year of this picture, I moved it out into the sun, where the light bleached out the chlorophyll and produced what you see here.  I was convinced that I had discovered the plant of the century.  Imagine an 80-foot-tall specimen of this thing in your yard...

Alas, as the sun heated up that summer, I found out that the plant couldn't actually tolerate the sun- even for the cool morning hours.  This is why it had looked so sickly and white in the landscaping of the apartment complex.

Since then... the little tree has continued to be a sickly little mutant.  I still like it, and I'll keep it around because I know what it is like to be a freak that no one likes.  <whimper>

Some of us freaks don't grow up to be trophy wives or husbands...  and some of us don't grow up to be resplendent chartreuse trees that light up suburban apartment complexes.  

We still deserve to live, though.  Just like I deserve to have a job where I get paid to take smart, quirky kids to coffee every Friday.