Winter Comfort
The outsize pleasure of green things in the window
I was down with a virus for a couple of days, days that were also deeply gray and intensely rainy. I didn’t mind it, being stuck under a blanket with a cup of tea and my books arrayed around me, the cats taking turns keeping me company. I think many of you have had indoor weather, too. It’s been a week in the US. I hope you’re safe and cozy with plenty to eat and good company in the form of humans or pets or good books.
This morning, I woke up entirely fine. Starving. As I cooked oatmeal for breakfast, I found myself puttering with the houseplants in my kitchen, checking the Christmas cactuses that are dropping their flowers before they’re even fully formed buds; still dropping, but otherwise healthy. Need to do some reading. All of the orchids are in bloom or about to start, and the lemon trees I had to bring in from the wind they hated are limping along. I’m actually harvesting fruit from them—a massive thrill. Need to read more about them, too, but I did discover some sneaky spider mites on the upper leaves. They’ll have to isolate somewhere else until I get rid of them.
Houseplants are having a moment. One of my favorite follows on Instagram is #houseplants, where monstera reins and pothos trail down the walls and (mostly) young people in their first apartments and homes make the spaces human and welcoming with windowsills full of plants. If you’re needing a little relaxation, check out https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/houseplants/. Good for ten solid minutes of quiet beauty.
When I first left home, my second place was a tiny railroad house built in the backyard of another, bigger house. It had long, south-facing windows and pine-paneled walls (not the anathema then that they are now) that glowed golden. I had no money, but my boyfriend rigged up some shelves for plants. My best friend, a fellow waitress at Michelle’s, was also a plant freak. We would head for the greenhouse a few blocks away and wander the aisle buying houseplants in two-inch pots, then weave macrame hangers for them as they grew. My windows were packed with plants, all ordinary things like coleus and what we called Wandering Jew but is now being called Wandering Dude, which is much better. I liked philodendrons and grew one that eventually grew down an entire hallway. I dreamed of having a greenhouse of my own, and a 35-millimeter camera, and a book published.
Then, as now, it was decoration we could afford.
When I left Colorado, I gave away quite a lot of plants and planned, really planned, to keep my tendency to fill every windowsill with plants under control. I’m not sorry I gave away the money tree and the figs and whatever else went with my friend Michelle Major (thank you). As it was, I packed my husband’s car—the passenger seat and entire back seat—with plants I couldn’t bear to part with. The enormous, old jade, the orchids that all made the trip with happy cheer and continued to bloom, a barrel cactus that presents a perfect pink circle at the top every year, the pair of small ones in a pot decorated by my cousin-niece for my wedding.
And that was going to be all I had in the house. The view is enough decoration, right?
Except that my realtor brought me a very healthy rubber tree, one of the first plants I ever had and brought back such happy memories I had to find a place for it. Two weeks after we arrived, Safeway had Boston ferns for sale and it suddenly seemed like I should have one in my studio. The jade loves its new location and has been offering tiny new shoots for harvest. A neighbor gave me Christmas cactus cuttings, and they’re thriving, so I bought some more and lined them up on the weird steep stairs in my kitchen. I’m still not very lucky with Christmas cactus. They’re like my mashed potatoes, a thing everyone else can master and I can’t. (Don’t give my your recipe for potatoes. I just have other people make them now. Believe me, you’re glad.)
Despite my vow, houseplants crowd the corner of my studio/office and a counter in the kitchen, and the stairs, and a couple of other tables. I am about to have the shower of my wildest dreams, with natural light for plants to grow in that humid world.
And why not? The dark days of January need some houseplant cheer. And there is something affirming about the need to tend and grow something alive. Plants fill the air with oxygen. Those endless photos of plant walls in apartments on Instagram are labors of love from people who are focused on nurturing. I want more people in the world like that. Plants are hopeful. Flowers are radical warriors for joy, blooming in such extravagant beauty no matter what is going on in the world. A blooming plant lifts your spirits every time your eyes fall on it.
All those instagram houseplant people are spreading joy, too. We need more joy, always.
Do you have a houseplant story? If you don’t like growing them, what is something that brings you joy in your home?
Love seeing your plants! While I enjoy houseplants, I am woefully neglectful of them. Thankfully That Husband o’ Mine enjoys them even more than I do and he has a green thumb touch. When the pandemic happened and he came home to work, he made tending the plants his hobby and our collection of two houseplants grew into a jungle—which we both love. He tends, we both love!
I am a huge houseplant person--our place is bursting with them. They make me happy and fill the space with beauty.