Mystery Solved

Some time ago, in one of my spasmodic and infrequent (and therefore doomed) attempts to beautify my home, I bought a large pot and some colourful flowers to sit on the porch next to our front door.

It looked like this:

...and I was happy.


But after awhile, the flowers started to sicken, and then the leaves, and despite my best efforts, the pot eventually looked like this:

Vistiors (i.e, my mother) asked occsionally, "Why has that happened?"

I didn't know.

Until, one night recently, I opened the front door in the middle of the night to take out some rubbish, and saw this:

Ah.

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Joining up with Dr Bron's Pick A Post: the animal one: