The Boy Who Watered the Wrong Plant
- 3 minute read
- Ages 4-8
- Bedtime Stories
Imran was given a plant in a small clay pot and told to look after it.
It was a chilli plant, about as tall as his hand, and his grandmother put it on the ledge outside the kitchen window and showed him how much water it wanted and how often.
He watered it every morning before school for three weeks and it did nothing at all.
The other pot
There was a second pot on that ledge, further along, which had been there for years and was full of dry soil and nothing else. Nobody had planted anything in it. It was just a pot that had never been put away.
And one morning Imran, being four and in a hurry, watered that one instead.
He did it the next day too, and the day after, and by the end of the week he had got into the habit of it, because the second pot was nearer the door.
His chilli plant sat at the far end of the ledge and did not get anything.
What his grandmother did
She noticed on about the third day.
She did not say anything.
What she did instead was move the chilli plant, quietly, one morning while he was at school, from the far end of the ledge to right beside the empty pot.
So the next day he watered the empty pot as usual, and some of it went over the side and into the chilli, and then he noticed that there were two pots there and watered them both.
And after a few days he stopped watering the empty one, because it was obviously empty, and only watered the chilli.
Nobody ever said anything about it at all.
The chilli
It grew.
By the end of the summer it was taller than the pot by a long way, and there were white flowers on it, and then small green chillies that went red one at a time.
His grandmother picked one and used it in the dal, and told him at dinner that it was his, and he ate a very small piece of it and did not enjoy it and was extremely proud.
The empty pot
The empty pot stayed on the ledge.
Something came up in it the following spring, from a seed that had blown in or been dropped by a bird, and nobody knew what it was and it turned out to be a marigold.
Which meant that all that watering had not been wasted after all, and had simply been going somewhere nobody could see yet.
Moral of the story
His grandmother did not tell him he was doing it wrong. She moved the plant six inches and let him find his own way to the right pot, and he never knew she had done it.
Questions and answers
- What was Imran given to look after?
A small chilli plant in a clay pot on the kitchen window ledge.
- What mistake did he make?
He began watering a second, empty pot that was nearer the door, and stopped watering the chilli.
- What did his grandmother do about it?
She quietly moved the chilli plant next to the empty pot while he was at school.
- Why did that work?
He watered the empty pot as usual, some spilled into the chilli, he noticed there were two pots, and eventually watered only the one with a plant in it.
- What happened to the empty pot?
A marigold came up in it the following spring from a seed that had blown in.
Word meanings
- ledge
- A narrow flat shelf, such as under a window.
- dal
- A South Asian dish made from lentils.
- marigold
- A common orange or yellow garden flower.
- habit
- Something you do regularly without thinking.
Questions about The Boy Who Watered the Wrong Plant
What is the moral of this story?
That correcting someone is not always the best way to help them. His grandmother changed the situation instead of the boy.
Why does she not just tell him?
The story does not explain, which is part of its charm. Being told you are wrong at four years old is discouraging; finding the right pot yourself is not.
Is this suitable for very young children?
Yes, ages four and above. Nothing goes wrong, nobody is told off, and the ending is entirely happy.
What is a good activity afterwards?
Plant something in a pot and let the child water it. The story works considerably better once it has actually been tried.