Toppled by my own success!

Usually when I try to grow plants, I get very emotionally attached, but they die.

One Christmas-time when my brother came to visit, we had this exchange:

Me: "Tom, can you do me a favor?  I want you to throw this dead plant away.  [point at plant]  But I'm very sad about it, so I don't want you to tell me when you've done it.  Just do it quietly when I'm not looking, and then put the empty pot in the corner.  I don't want to talk about it again."

Tom: "Okay."

Later that weekend, I noticed that the plant was gone, and the empty pot was in the corner.

Photo of a representative plant.

The next day, I had a few people over for dinner.  Linda brought over a tiny potted spruce.  My brother took one look at the hopeful little spruce, and said with a sigh, "Well, I know what I'll be doing on my next trip to San Fran!"

The only exception were my succulents.  My realtor friend gave them to me, and they grew bigger every week.  I am so proud of them!  I love them dearly.

They got bigger and bigger, and then I came home yesterday to find this:

Horrors!

They got too big for their home.  A success problem!