Grow Write Guild #23: Houseplant Love

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Houseplants are often where many of us nurture a love of cultivating plants, and through winter, they can be an important way to stay connected to the gardener part of ourselves.

Grow Write Guild Prompt #23: Write about a houseplant.

    Further Questions:

  • Rather than focussing on a first houseplant or a favourite, I left this one open-ended. You decide which plant you want to write about.
  • You may also choose how you want to define houseplant. It could be a plant that stays indoors indefinitely, or one that only lives inside through the winter. It could even be a plant that you just happen to be overwintering, but would not typically think of as a houseplant. i.e. hot peppers, an office tomato, a plant that came up as a volunteer.
  • Choose to write about a plant that you’ve had forever, one that was recently acquired, or a boring plant that sits in the corner, unnoticed.
  • If you’re having trouble picking, choose to write about one at random.
  • For a twist, write from the perspective of the plant or a critter that lives in the pot. What kind of character would this plant have if anthropomorphized?
  • If a story feels too long, narrow your writing down to a short description. This could be a paragraph or just one sentence.
  • Is there something that you are reminded of when you look at the plant? This could be a personal anecdote or something simple like a song, a TV show, or a person.

When sitting down to write, ask yourself questions such as: How did I come by this plant? (i.e. An impulse purchase, a gift, a cutting from a friend, grown from seed…) What was going on in my life when I acquired it? What compelled me to choose it? If you still have the plant, ask yourself why. There are a lot of directions to take with this prompt. Go with your first instinct.

The Grow Write Guild is a creative writing club for people who love to garden. Everyone is welcome to participate! Click over to the Grow Write Guild FAQ to learn more about it.

Gayla Trail
Gayla is a writer, photographer, and former graphic designer with a background in the Fine Arts, cultural criticism, and ecology. She is the author, photographer, and designer of best-selling books on gardening, cooking, and preserving.

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11 thoughts on “Grow Write Guild #23: Houseplant Love”

  1. My dear Mother’s Mother loved to garden, especially indoors. She gave me my first house plant, a cutting of a heart leaf philodendron (Philodendron scandens oxycardium). She put it into a Mason jar, full of water and told me that I could grow it in there until the roots broke the jar. She also said, “Don’t thank me. A plant is a gift from nature. We are only the stewards. Besides, It’s bad luck to thank someone when they give you a plant. The plant will die.”

    I thanked her just the same.

    I took the philodendron to college, to Delaware Valley College, along with a Jade (Crassula ovata) and three spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum), each with a different variation of leaf color. The jade was from my sister and the spider plants were from a close friend. These other house plants were grown in clay pots. I mention the containers because, after three and one half years of growing them at college, they become really root-bound and there developed a sort of “Who Will Break First” pool in the dorm. The solid green leafed spider plants seemed to be winning and looked as if it were going to crack first, because its roots were hanging out of the pot. I had to water it twice a day.

    Then half way into my senior year, my dorm building caught fire. For those who still place people above nature, everyone got out okay and no one was hurt. But, I did lose everything, including my collection of house plants. They didn’t burn. In order to fight the blaze, the firemen had to cut the power and it was February. So, everything froze solid. Those who placed bets on the philodendron in the Mason jar, to win, won their bet. It was the first to crack its container. The other plants just died of exposure.

    Of course, I wasn’t alone in my loss. All the horticulture students had lost their houseplants or worse, their lab experiments. We asked the college administration if there was anything that could be done. But we were told that the insurance companies only had replacement values for trees and items of real value, not house plants. And, since all of my plants were gifts there was no way to price them for any insurance claim. I needed receipts.

    I remembered my grandmother telling me not to thank her for a gift of nature. She was right, they did die. From then on I ask everyone to refrain from thanking me when I give them a plant. And. I don’t say thank you when given a plant. I say, “I’ll always remember you in this plant”, or something like that.

    I never had another heart leaf philodendron until now, some forty years later. This past weekend I was able to obtain a cutting of a heart leaf philodendron from a friend and I put it in a jar of water on my desk and there I’ll grow it until the jar breaks, from the roots, this time.

    • I’ve never heard of growing it in a jar until it breaks and love that you turned it into a competitive sport! Great story all around and I may just adopt your rule not to overtly say thanks for the plant.

    • Sam, I loved this! And I loved how you say, I’ll remember you in this plant. I give plants as gifts often, and that would be the sweetest thing to know, that they think of me and remember me when they tend their plant.

  2. I was once a great beauty, almost 20 feet long and stretching for the soil of a spidery neighbour plant. I was youthful with an old soul, the star of the main floor. I would gracefully hang from the side of the windowsill with my feet touching the floor, unkempt and free. As the screen door would swing open I’d reach for the warm summer air where the tomatoes, garden roses, and lavender played. Before I knew it the seasons had shifted again, as they always do, and I had lost my chance for the wild.

    I’ve watched time change and felt the draft of the wintery air more times than my leaves can account for. My view is the same unless I twist and turn my heart shaped leaves as I grow up the recycled wood ladder within my elephant engraved pot. This winter was different though. I was forced into the open air for the sake of a new city. I barely made it. The temperatures were beyond freezing, they instantly stopped my heart and I wilted. My gorgeous figure was soon discarded in an attempt to save the rest of me and all that was left were my roots.

    You must understand, on the surface I am extremely self-conscious, prone to performance and fed by comparison. I’m continuously striving to be noticed regardless of neglect and I grow off of rejection, desiring for you to acknowledge my strength. I’m popular amongst the masses but at my core I crave the undivided attention of few. This urges me to climb for being small is not an option. I refuse to be forgotten. At my depth, I am resilient. I am a fighter. Just the slightest drop of water or sunshine can keep me going for weeks. I can even survive in the dark if I must.

    This is me.

    Naked. Bare. Vulnerable.

    I have nowhere to hide now without my billowing leaves. You know all my secrets.

    Do you see me now?

    Today I am just roots, soon I will be a vine.

    ~ Devil’s Ivy

  3. For so long I’ve never actually finished my responses, and this morning I did, thanks to not being able to sleep :)

    In our music room, a striped ficus plant sits in front of the large window. Its two small trunks grow tightly together, one overlapping the other, and bright leaves hang off the branches. The green is streaked with yellow, providing a lovely contrast in a nearly all-white room. When the afternoon sun shines through the window, the leaves glow softly.

    This was the first plant I purchased when my husband and I moved into our house. I knew from watching HGTV and reading Martha Stewart that adding houseplants was what you did to make a home beautiful. I didn’t put much thought into the choosing of the plant; I simply went to Lowe’s and picked up the one with interesting leaves. I potted it in a small container, set it on the mantel, and there it remained for some time.

    But it didn’t grow. It didn’t die, mind you, but it didn’t grow. It stayed the same height, never growing, never changing, except for the sad dropping of leaves. Finally, when I had tossed yet another wilted leaf, I decided it was time for it to go.

    I set it outside, waiting for the right moment to chuck it in the green waste.

    And there, it was rescued. My husband, one who has a soft place in his heart for just about anything, found it. “Are you getting rid of this?” he asked. I knew he looked at it with sentimentality (it was our first houseplant, afterall), so I explained as kindly as I could that it was dead.

    It wasn’t dead, though, and he knew it. For the next half hour, he worked quietly, repotting the plant with fresh soil in a larger ceramic pot. And then for the next days and weeks, he tended to the plant, moved it around the house so that it got enough light, made sure its water was just right. He did for the plant what he does for so many people and living things: he loved it, and he wanted to see it thrive.

    Soon, there were fresh leaves budding. And soon after that, there were more leaves. And then months passed, then years passed, and it grew two feet. It has indeed thrived, tripling in size, a permanent yet changing part of our home, a reminder of what care and attention can do for something.

    About a month ago, I gave it its new space in our music room, moving it from our bathroom to the prime place in front of the window. As I walked down the hallway carrying the plant, my husband smiled. “I saved that guy,” he said. He was right; he did save it. He loved a dying plant (silly man), and that is precisely the reason why I love him.

    http://www.robandcan.blogspot.com/2014/03/thoughts-on-houseplant-at-6-am.html

  5. I saw you first, as you strolled into the nursery. You were smiling and carefree and, I’ll confess, I think I fell in love with you right then and there. You just had “that” look, you know? That look of someone who is comfortable in her own skin, and, at the same time, just a tiny bit unsure of herself.

    I remember I could even smell your perfume from where I sat; not a store-bought concoction of oils and artifice. No. You, my dear, smelled of dirt and leaves and a maybe little bit of wet dog; you had an earthy and natural scent about you. With your wet sneakers and wind-blown hair, you were perfect.

    You glanced around the greenhouse, then, systematically, started browsing each row of pots and hanging plants. You’d pause often to touch a leaf, to smell a flower. You were in no hurry and clearly enjoying yourself. I was growing anxious, though, fearing some other fine specimen would catch your eye. At the very thought of you with someone else, I sighed and flicked off a leaf. Call me petulant! Call me impatient! But I just had to have you.

    Finally, you drew near. You grinned when you saw the sign posted at my feet, “Half Off!”, and I almost giggled with joy. I sat still, though even until this day I don’t know how I managed it. You looked at my neighbor. You studied the pot behind me. I was in agony as I waited. And then, finally, you saw me. Me!

    Your eyes narrowed in concentration as you looked at my leaves (or, should I say, remaining leaves). I held my breath. And then you touched me. Your caress was firm, but gentle, exactly as I imagined it. You picked me up. You turned me completely around, so carefully, in your warm hands. This close to you, I saw the speckles of dirt still lodged under your nails and could feel a callus on your hands. I was completely smitten!

    Then, without warning, you turned me over and looked at my bottom! No foreplay, no announcement; just “hello!” and I was upside down, showing you my roots. Oh, I was mortified beyond belief. I couldn’t help it that my roots were poking through the pot. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. You, the love of my life, were looking right smack at my most personal parts and we’d only just met. But thankfully, as quick as a blink of an eye, I was upright again and you were still smiling. Did you hear my sigh of relief? I’m pretty sure the azaleas outside were deafened by it.

    Like all real love stories, the one doesn’t have an end. You picked me up off that table and never looked back. We rode home together, singing songs at the top of our lungs. You chose a nice new pot for me, one that tucked all my roots in properly and made me look nice. I watch over your office for you and you make sure I get plenty of food and water. And every night when you turn off the light, I start looking forward to the next morning when we will spend the day together, sharing a little coffee and growing another day older.

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