Shoot's plant hospital

I seem to be collecting dead or dying plants from my friends.  I recommend that you avoid this if you can.

First I received a tangled mass of dead sticks in a pot, which was described to me as a "bougainvillea."  How could one know that, I asked...and was told that the plant looked like a bougainvillea when it was first purchased from Home Depot, in an absurdly small pot.  After transplant, though, and removal of half its rotting rootmass, it looked increasingly like a tangled mass of dead sticks.  Now it has a few red buds on it.  Should be in good shape in a few years.

Then I received a half-dead ivy, after a new friend found out I was interested in gardening.  "You are?," she said, "then I've got a plant for you that needs some love."  What kind?  "I don't know," she said, "you're the gardener!"  Well, sure...but IVY?  Everybody over the age of six knows what an ivy looks like.  Perhaps she didn't want to mention it for fear that I'd turn it down.  But...sigh...no...I took it.

There are others, but you get the gist.  I've established a special clinic in the backyard, under the porch, hidden from view, where these twisted, downtrodden twigs can recuperate.  One major problem is that non-gardeners tend to buy (and kill) such pedestrian plants.  They are hardly worth saving.

The recent hilarious Onion headline here seems relevant!