I looked around the room to find who was talking
It was one of my houseplants
He was livid about me bringing a weed into the house
All weeds are evil he shouted
The rest of the houseplants downstairs joined in the rant
My little weed Caps started shouting back
I had to go downstairs and yell at them all to stop shouting
I said if anybody utters another word tonight they will be put in the potting shed for a month
I promised we would continue the discussion in the morning
After a good nights sleep I arranged all the houseplants and Caps in a circle on the lounge floor
I moderated this group therapy session for hours on end
It was obvious that weeds were despised and rejected by all but their own clan
It emerged that the plants in the garden also had active terrorists
They carried out retaliatory attacks on the weeds
This really is a deep rooted conflict
After weeks of daily therapy sessions we started to make progress
I had breakout groups work on specific tasks
Caps brought more of his friends in to even up the numbers
We did team building exercises to build trust between the two sides
The final session was a presentation given to me on how they proposed to end the conflict
Here is a summary of what they decided
The term “weed” is offensive and from now on shall be replaced by “plants of a different color“
All the plants in the garden shall go through cultural training so that all can live together in harmony
A plant counter terrorism group will be established to protect the garden from attacks
A firewall will be created by planting specialist plants around the perimeter
These plants will connect to the mycelium and prevent any data transfer with terrorists plants outside
The garden will no longer have manicured flower beds or lawns
It will be planted as a natural garden and wild flowers will be encouraged to grow
An alliance will be established with the birds who will spread our seeds and cuttings to other gardens
The objective is to spread harmonious plant gardens all over the planet
I was well impressed with their work and congratulated them all
I suggested we repeat the presentation tomorrow morning in the garden
I was looking forward to the reaction of all the garden plants
We all slept well that night and planned to get up early the next day
I awoke around 4am to terrible screams
I ran downstairs to find two dead houseplants on the kitchen floor
They had been strangled by vines who had crept in through an open window