9th January 2024

Last night we endured the most hectic storm we have ever had in the Midlands: torrential Rain, hurricane-type winds, and little hailstones.

The problem we faced was that as the hail stones were small in size, the wind was blowing them in every direction. This went straight under the roof of the structure I had built to house the plants and protect them from heavy downpours and hail, but I never thought we would ever have to deal with this kind of storm.

The winds blew the stones at a 90-degree angle against the house, chipping some plaster off the house walls that were facing the storm. Treated gum poles looked as if they had stones catapulted at them and branches of trees ripped off and snapped like they were toothpicks. (Thankfully, unlike some of my poor neighbors, none of the trees in our place were uprooted) After the storm, we had to try to mop up some of the water inside the house, so never got to look at my poor babies until the morning, but based on how I had seen the branches in the trees getting ripped off, and the rainwater coming under the doors I wasn’t holding up much hope.

The following morning I walked into the greenhouse and it looked like a scene from WW2, after bombers had dropped bombs on innocent little towns. Venus Fly traps literally “rained” out of their pots. Sarracenias hanging onto thin little threads of what was left of the Phyllodia, seemingly crying in agony from war wounds and the traps of the Fly Traps ripped off like someone had ripped off the legs of an insect :-(

You know that feeling when you look at something and just want to cry? Well, that was the surge of emotions running through me. Never mind the fact that our poor house and cottages, had sustained severe damage, I was more upset at the state of my plants.

So while I left my poor hubby to deal with cleaning up the house and dealing with the insurance for the damage there too, I spent the rest of the day pruning as much of the damage off the plants as I could, repotting all the ones that had been uprooted and started praying to all the carnivorous plant gods there where to help my poor beautiful babies recover…