My first plant was a rubber tree that was five feet tall. My mother threw it out of her house not long after I had also left home. I took it to my single-girl apartment, wiped the leaves with milk, watered it, and named it Goodrich.
I was also plant-hooked. The thought that a plant could give me oxygen, keep me healthy, and remove pollutants from the air I was breathing amazed me. Besides, I needed something to cheaply fill the vacant spaces in that apartment.
Plant stores seemed to dominate street corners during the seventies, (probably because none of us could afford to fill the empty spaces in our first apartments,) and I was ripe for supporting them. Since then, plants have "come to me," as gifts, party favors, garage sale finds, rescue efforts (meaning that someone was going to dump one!) or by my walking through the aisles at places like Lowe's and having love at first sight experiences.
Several hundred plants have tried to cohabitate with me. (This sounds far more exciting than it truly was. ) Some actually survived the cohabitation. I've moved plants to and from the nine homes of my life since that first. I don't remember what happened to Goodrich, but I think he got left outside too long, one autumn. Thankfully, I do not recall the details.
On a walk one night, in my next life, I rescued a very nice plant that a frustrated homeowner had put on the curb. I lugged that sucker home, named it Annie (as in Orphan,) and it has been with me for twenty-five years. Not all good years. It is a schefflera plant, and it grew to a huge height and breadth. Two summers ago I failed to move it from underneath a gutter that over-ran, and flooded it. She died. I literally wept, and moved Annie to the far corner of the back yard to await her total demise and burial.
I went out and bought another one, (a replacement puppy) feeling hideous guilt. I named the new shefflera "Mrs. Grenville," (after a Dominick Dunne book which had two women by that name, this being the second one...) Then, after several months of looking at poor dead Annie's dried-up stems rotting in her pot, I moved her into some sunshine, gave her a small drink, (instead of the flood she had already had,) and lo' and behold, greenery reappeared! We changed her name to Lazarus, (apparently she had a sex-change operation, of sorts, also,) and little by little Annie Lazarus is coming back to beauty!
I tell you about this to explain that my plants, being living beings, are family members with names, in our home. Old Faithful is a large philodendron who has been with me for nearly twenty years, and spreads itself all across the living room coffee table, where there is no room for coffee, much less the comfort that the table should offer to guests. If you visit, you had better be prepared to hold your cup and saucer. Old Faithful emerges from his round pot like a volcanic eruption, and then spreads over and down from the tabletop.
Pedro is a very tall prickly cactus who bites if I get too close. We do not get along well, but I did invite Pedro into my home, and I have taken care of him for a number of years, so I feel the need to be hospitable. I think he reminds me of a former relative, not my favorite, so when I water Pedro, I whisper closely into his spiky skin, "You only get a little bit of water, you see?"
Shylock is my Wandering Jew who does well outside in the summertime, and then gets nasty during the winter. I do not talk back to Shylock, knowing that he KNOWS when he is happy and when he is not, and I can't do anything for his mood but pick up his lost brown leaves. His summer purple is much more lush than his winter dull.
A spider plant named Charlotte takes over a little stool by our picture window, and refuses to reproduce those "babies" that my friends' spider plants have. I think Charlotte needs to see a reproductive specialist, as I seem to have the only barren spider plant in town. Hope springs eternal.
Spot is a huge variegated thing near the fireplace, obviously named for its spots. I do not know his/her gender, and I do not ask. I just water, smile, love, and hope for the best.
What fun to give names to living things! I talk to them when I water them, and tell them I knew they thought they weren't going to get any water, but LOOK, here I am, pitcher in hand !
In my plant-kingdom, there are also some which are too simple, such as Fern (duh), a fern, or Noel, my mother's Christmas cactus. There is also Paddy, the Shamrock, and Gustav, the Norwegian Pine tree. On the mantle sits Yoko Ono, an oriental orchid, who has lost her bloom.
The Lounge Lizard is a giant aloe plant who has leaned so far over that he drapes himself across the window sill as if he is relaxing there. If only I could be so content and relaxed! I cannot move this plant for fear of his falling off his perch and breaking. He will have to eventually be sold with the house.
A pot with several mixed plants is called The Witness, a gift sent to the funeral home where it stood as sentinel by my loved one during the hardest hours of my life. It will always be with me.
Tom, Dick, and Harry are a threesome, all different, and they share a three-pot holder, which makes them a "set." They do everything together. If one were to die, I would then have an empty pot, and would have to go find them another buddy.
My neighbor, Jean With the Green Hands, has presented me, recently, with two huge pots of aloes. They are spiky and sort of threatening-looking just now. We've decided to call them The Medusa Twins. I am awaiting a relationship to bloom. (So far I cover my face for fear of turning to stone, but I feel positive enough to think that we might be able to work this out during the winter.) Randy objected to my taking Medusa in, actually. But I told him if he needed aloe for a cut, we could now cover his entire body with it. I am sure that was the convincing argument. It was either that or the tears.
Randy says I have too many plants. I remind him of the oxygen. He says he'd rather be without it. I show him magazine homes that have NO plants, and tell him how sad I am for "those people" without greenery in their lives. He actually wanted me to get a bunch of FAKE PLANTS once, when we were first married. He said they'd be easier to care for, and I said I wouldn't let them in the house, because a fake plant LOOKS fake! (If you're a fake plant lover, just hide them when I visit.) I won. (Except for the fake plant you read about in the previous post, of course, which pretends to exist on our screened porch, and does not count.) I suppose this is called plant-prejudice of some kind.
My mother had a plant that died, once. It died nameless. I do remember the event, however, as I was there when the presumed declaration of death was pronounced. Mom said that the plant was dead, she thought. Then she said that perhaps she should take it out into the woods, "like a Greek baby," and leave it there until she was sure that it was "not only merely dead, but most sincerely dead." Which we did. It was.
Annie, the Orphan, now Lazarus, is the Poster Child for the Greek Baby! Pedro stands, breathing oxygen into unnourished air, and Charlotte tries to send spidery vines to show life moving into areas where none existed before. Old Faithful IS faithful, when others may not have been, the Lounge Lizard will forever relaxingly rest along the window sill (asking for a martini, someday, I suppose,) and The Witness will always be with me, as will the Loved One it guarded. If Charlotte ever does reproduce, can you imagine the fun I will have, naming all those little spider-babies?
copyright: K P Gillenwater
