Houseplants

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Not long ago I heard an  interview on NPR on the “consciousness” of plants, which got me worrying that  maybe I was hurting my pot of basil every time I pinched off her leaves  for marinara sauce. So I’ve been digging my fingers below the surface of my understanding to unearth what it is exactly about my new hobby, so  often frustrating and full of fails, that keeps me at it! Read the story here on Medium or below:

After the “smoke event” of June, 2023, when Eastern Canada caught on fire and belched particulates down the Eastern seaboard, reaching as far as Flatbush, Brooklyn, and turning the sky outside my window Creamsicle orange, I did two things to improve the air quality in my one-bedroom micro-environment: I bought a Korean air purifier on Amazon and a small forest of houseplants from my local florist.

Until that point, I had just one imposing snake plant, worthy of any dentist’s waiting room, which thrived under the canopy of my neglect. Now I had a leafy grove with hard-to-pronounce names and confusing care labels poking up from pots.

Like cooking, there is a knack to growing houseplants. A little education in the beginning helps — plant care podcasts and conversations with neighbors are a good start, but as I discovered, you are on your own to save that broccoli sheet pan supper from shriveling into the petrified forest, or that African Violet, when, for no apparent reason, she loses all turgidity in her stems and collapses like a beached octopus.

What I have learned from cooking and caring for plants is that you have to be willing to have your heart broken and to try again. You have to be willing to turn up the heat and sear salmon again, and you have to be willing to compost that Tiger Aloe that you overwatered and then go buy another succulent, just like it.

I have also learned that both the art of cooking and the art of plant care require good timing and just the right amount of attention. Shrimp can go from raw to rubbery in thirty seconds, and a tempermental Rosemary can catch a chill and drop her needless overnight. And if you get too fussy flipping that flounder filet, it flakes into a million pieces in the pan. You have to face failure, accept what isn’t working, and change course.

But most situations in the kitchen and on the sunny windowsill are salvageable. And this is heartening for someone like me, who likes to eat well and surround herself with foliage that continuously pants oxygen into the air.

I recently heard a story on NPR about the consciousness of plants, not a new concept, but revived and expanded in cool ways. Like most stories that I listen to on NPR, I can’t remember the name of the person interviewed, nor the name of their book. So I looked it up: The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger, a staff writer at the Atlantic. The takeaway was this: when plants are challenged by unfriendly forces in their environment they don’t just surrender their fate from their fixed and rooted position, they get creative. Or as Ms. Schlanger puts it, plants have “agency.” “They take an active stake in the outcome of their life,” and have this “lively ability to make choices for themselves.” She goes on to describe this weird way tomato plants can secrete substances into their leaves that are so distasteful to caterpillars, that the fuzzy parasites turn away from feeding on tomato leaves, and turn to munching on each other instead. Obviously, plants can’t always save themselves like this, but they can usually buy themselves some time.

And it is in this grace period, when all plants, including my Peace Lily, when the tips of her leaves turn brown in distress, that they are able to tolerate some pain, and stave off death. And it’s also during this time, when plants are kicking into survival mode, that I can step in and try to save my Anthurium, who is turning pale and folding her heart- shaped leaves inward. I can move her from direct sunlight to bright, diffuse light. She might like that. But lighting is tricky with houseplants and I’m still figuring it out.

If I am alert and adaptable, like the plants in my care, I can see trouble coming and demonstrate agency myself. I can be more attuned to the heroics of my house plants as they bend, discolor and curl in order to live. I can watch and intuit their needs. I can notice when my Kalanchoe fails to thrive and pinch her back hard, then mist her well.

My Heart of Jesus keeled over today. He had been ailing for weeks and I had tried everything. I will take him back to the florist tomorrow, and I’ll let the florist scold me for what I did wrong, and I will buy another Caladium, just like him. And I will try again. I will take him home and care for him and not over water him. And if his leaves start to drop anyway, my new Heart of Jesus and I will both demonstrate agency to try to turn things around. And maybe this time it will work out all right.