My happiest plant story is not a plant I grew, but a plant I loved. In grade school, the college library was right outside my classroom window, and they had a banana plant in the tall window. I visited the plant every day after school, and learned that, like Charlotte the spider, it would die after reproducing, but that her children would grow up to make fruit, and children, of their own. So of course I named her Charlotte. I watched her grow, bloom, make bananas, then die. I cheered on her children as they made bananas of their own, and vowed that someday I would have a greenhouse and grow my own banana plants.
And yup, they have all been named Charlotte!
Carolyn