Chris had decided to devote the rest of his Friday evening to gardening. The amount of grading he had to do was decreasing, his college classes were starting to slow down, and Chris figured that he could devote an entire evening to gardening without falling behind on something. If he was lucky, the work would tire him out enough that he could fall asleep. It was becoming something of a problem lately, but he didn't know how to fix it. Maybe he'd ask Autumn about herbs or do some looking through that notebook he had? It could be worth it, he mused, as he walked into his parent's backyard.

The flowerbed where most of the herbs resided was looking a little more green than usual and Chris gave a small grin of delight. He liked weeding the most and after dropping his bag off on the porch and pulling on his gloves, he went to work on the flowerbed. He hummed as he worked, letting it at first fill the silence, then started talking. His mom had said it was good for the plants and Chris found it mindless enough and it let him think about things he'd been stuck on.

"You're looking more green than usual," He regarded to the mint, stroking its leaves as he paused in his weeding. "Has all the water been good to you?"

"Yes," a small voice whispered back and Chris dropped the vegetation he was holding in shock, whipping his head around to see who was in the backyard with him. When he found no one, his head turned back to the plant, squinting suspiciously at it. He had gotten enough sleep lately, so it wasn't a hallucination, but he didn't want to suspect the plant. His life was weird enough as it was, honestly.

"Was that you?" He asked it reluctantly, once again touching the plant. A faintly amused (could plants even sound amused? this was weird) "Yes" was repeated once more and Chris just sighed. This was definitely Other Ashdown coming to play in his life once more. Now it was in his hobbies, in the backyard of his parent's house no less. He huffed out a sigh and then, after considering, went back to weeding. He'd continue his conversation after the flowerbed looked nice and well. He didn't want to think about what could happen if thinking about this while pulling up the weeds.

A short twenty minutes later, Chris decided to test his theory with the plants. It quickly became apparent that they.. weren't good at conversation. Great at complaining they needed water, or that they wanted to grow, or about the bees that had come through the garden, but nothing else. He was mildly relieved about that, oddly enough. It was good to know he wouldn't be talking to any of the trees soon like Autumn did with the cats.

Another test with anything dead provided he couldn't talk with it too and cut flowers seemed to be fine (he had left some in his parent's house, overflow from the garden), although they had smaller voices than whatever was rooted in the ground. It was, admittedly weird walking around and just testing if he could talk with plants but when it was said and done Chris was... excited almost.

He was like a literal Lorax. He couldn't wait to tell Autumn.