Plant maintenance
The roommates who follow me everywhere
I re-potted some of my houseplants the other day. It had been on my to-do list for a year and a half, since I drove from New York to Anchorage with a box of pared down favorites and cuttings. The plants made it over the Canadian border and back again, across four time zones and one late-May snowstorm. They made it to my little rental house and recovered during the Alaskan summer, sunlight all day and nearly all night.
They stabilized there but didn’t thrive. Meanwhile it was winter and I moved into my new place and then it was summer again and I acquired new plants and cuttings, gifts from friends or people moving away. None were thriving, and I knew they needed a boost. I put it off.
My Brooklyn apartment was an accidental plant heaven: everything I brought there did well. It got lots of ambient light, sure, but the windows faced north and direct sun was fleeting. It had tall ceilings and lots of high shelves to place plants out of harm (my cat)’s way—that helped, too. But the reason that apartment was good for plants was that it was the tiniest space of all time. I could see each one of my houseplants while sitting on my couch, or when working at my desk, or as soon as I stepped inside. It was easy to observe them. They were impossible to ignore. I took in their changes, their moments of growth and repose. I checked on them frequently because I could. Because they were right there, sharing intimate space with me. I sat and I noticed and I tried to respond how they wanted. I’ve never really had much of a green thumb but taking care of plants there was easy. All I had to do was look.
I left that apartment to move here. My plants couldn’t all join, so I triaged. I gave away what friends wanted and kept what meant most to me: the rubber plant I’d bought in Seattle in 2017, the cuttings from my ex and from my great-aunt, the ZZ that survived a six-month pandemic office shutdown. The rubber plant had gotten too big to fit in the car so I had to lop it in two: a painful and ugly process that it handled with typical grace. The move was painful, and ugly, too. I felt lopped, altered. I had traded my security for freedom and that choice exacted a price. Maybe now, finally, I’m starting to gain some security back.
The place where I live here has more space—I can no longer see all of my plants from the couch. But I’m starting to find them their places, the spots where we’ll coexist. They have new life now, nutrients and (at least artificial) light. It’s weirdly comforting to see them look better; as if I’m becoming healthier alongside. It’s wild how little I know about plants. How much there is to learn. At least I know that so far all it’s taken is what I have in spades, should I choose to use it. May my attention and careful response be enough.
We never had indoor plants growing up. Instead, I remember how the house changed in December when the Christmas tree and poinsettia bushes came in. I used to think the living room felt special because of the lights on the tree and the promise of wrapped presents beneath it. Now, I wonder if the tree brought its life to us, too.
Today I sit here on the couch in front of my own (tiny) Christmas tree, a fir bought at Lowes. I doubt it’s local, I missed the boat on getting one from the woods nearby. But it works. It adds something unnameable to this cozy room that makes me want to sit here again like I did in the summer months when all was bathed in light. I’m sitting here now, with the tree, with the cat, with the snake plant and the pilea and two out-of-season pumpkins that I keep because I don’t know what else to do. My dad painted the walls of this room last March while I recovered from a broken ankle. The room is starting to hold space, a room for the life I’m building alongside my flora and fauna friends.
After over a decade of making my own homes and with no other actual authority I’ll proclaim there isn’t a secret to aesthetic curation beyond listening to what your space offers and taking what works for you. I still believe in intuitive feelings about homes—the immediacy of viewing 20 apartments in a day and knowing as soon as you step through the doorway the only one that’s for you. Beyond that, though, a place becomes ours through our living in it. It absorbs our messes and cleanups, our mistakes and our wins. It holds our plant and animal cohabitants; our human ones too. May we all be so held. xx
Love.
When you said you didn't grow up with plants it reminded me of the time my mom and I bought a calladium. We did have a few plants and they got watered on Saturdays when we kids were doing our chores but since this was a new plant, my mom was in charge of it. We had it for 2 weeks before my sister's boyfriend came over and pointed out that it was fake. Yes, we were watering a fake plant. That pretty much sums up our green thumb. :)
And yes, I completely understand plants as companions. xo