Sometimes I have little floaters in my eyes – those tiny black specks that flit around in your field of vision only to dart away when you shift your eyes to look at them. And sometimes I have little black gnats that fly in aimless circles around my head and across my line of sight. Both are irritating. But that’s not the problem. The problem is knowing which ones to swat.  

It’s a conundrum. A little like the problem I’m having with the potted plants that fill my patio.

One of the many good things about being an expat in Mexico is that there are lots of other expats that come and go. And often, when they go, they have a patio filled with plants that they’re willing to give away or sell for cheap. In some cases, they have so many plants and the plants are so big that it takes two men and a truck to transfer them the short distance between houses in the same neighborhood.

That was my case – the how and why our patio was transformed in a single day from barren concrete, dotted with little pots of starter plants, to a near jungle. I loved the new look.

The only problem was that I didn’t know a single name of any of the plants, let alone how to care for them. Nowhere to be seen were the hardy begonias and impatiens that were the staples of my midwest gardens and that seemed to thrive on benign neglect. Instead I faced plants native to Mexico, many of which had leaves that began turning yellow and falling to the ground with alarming regularity. 

Not wanting to end up with a patio filled with pots, but barren of flora, I turned to the internet for help, asking, “Why do leaves turn yellow?” in every combination of words that I could think of. Each reworked question gave me the exact same answer.

“Leaves turn yellow from too much or too little water.”

It was like telling me that the black spots in front of my eyes might or might not be gnats. No help. That much I know. What I need to know is when to swat. Or, in case of my new plants, when to water. It remains a conundrum. And I continue to under-water or over-water and hope for the best.  

With one significant difference. In the course of my internet search, I learned that planting Mexican marigolds will drive away gnats. One problem solved.