Bloom Now - or Die!

Bloom Now – 

or Die!!

A two-year-old pinkflowerii prittithang.  Deb Marshall photo.

I am not a helicopter plant mother. I don’t talk to my plants, or sing to them, or even remember to water them all that often. I used to threaten them, but they never took me seriously, so I gave that up. My Nana was an effective plant-threatener: she’d say to an unblooming African violet, “You’ve got one week! Produce a bloom or out you go!” and one week later, that plant would be covered with lovely, quivering blossoms. 

Part of the problem might be that I can’t remember the plants’ names, so they aren’t sure who I’m muttering at. I read British magazines, and it seems that every person born in the United Kingdom - besides being able to instantly convert meters to inches in their heads - from the time they’re in long pants also knows the Latin name for species and variety of every common or uncommon plant. I, on the other hand, don’t always know even the common name, though I can usually produce a name in Mandarin if the plant’s used as a Chinese medicinal or used for food.

I don’t do badly with outdoors plants; as I stride purposefully by my summer garden on the way to somewhere else, I enjoy shouting at the thirsty plants crying out for a few drops of water, “You’re free-range! Find your own darned food!” Somehow, they almost always do. And I’m sure they’re better for it.

The indoor plants, however… what wimps they are. Most summers they go out on the wart, and as they stay in their pots, I take pity and throw water at them fairly regularly.  They seem to enjoy their outdoors vacation, and I imagine it’s a shock to return to the indoors, where I have been known to forget all about them for weeks at a time. The Christmas cactuses – mine all bloom on Hallowe’en (there’s a theological conundrum for you) -  don’t mind so much, but the others can get kind of cranky. I have a bay and a kaffir lime tree – I remember them because they end up in the soup – never get enough water to be happy; and there are several others that I should take better care of, because when I accidentally do, they produce lovely and even fragrant winter blossoms. One is a passionflower which is growing all over the windows, twisted up with an oblonggreenery vineythingii, which also produces a lovely scented white flower.  I have also several largebulbi fourflowersup that keep producing new bulbs and an occasional red or white winter bloom stem. There’s a freesia – I remember that one, don’t know why – which flops all over but stirs my soul with amazingly scented, salmon and rose-colored flowers most winters, once I remember to start watering it again after its dry summer rest; and I have three likesnorthlight orchidistuff, which will produce a bloom every year or so.

I usually manage to keep the house orchids alive, but at my office I regularly kill them off, somehow. And I have there an African violet that Nan would have tossed out many months ago. Even so, I somehow got designated the office plant careperson, which tells you something about the other folks who share the office suite.  Mostly, I try to remember to water the office inmates once a week. We have a rubber tree (da huang, I can remember that one), a heartleaved cantkillit, a spikeyleaf needsnosunii, and a giant hugegreenleaf fallinover.

The other day when I entered the office waiting room I noticed something, something was different…but what? It was somehow darker than usual.  Using my supersleuth powers, I soon detected that one of our floor lamps was now stretched out on the floor. The hugegreenleaf fallinover had finally fallen over. Months ago when it started drooping, I’d tied it to the lamp to keep it upright, so it took its prop down with it.

I vaguely remembered a patient telling me, as she watched me tie the plant to the lamp, that I could chop the leggy limbs off that plant and stick them into wet dirt and they’d root anew. With luck and proper watering, she said with a meaningful look, it would grow into a lush, more compact, lovely plant. 

So OK, I can do this. I stick sharp needles into people who can say OUCH! every day; how much harder can it be to do surgery on a mute plant?

This is one big plant – its leggy bits weren’t breaking off, no matter how hard I twisted. So I took a breadknife to it, that being the only sharp-edged tool in the office bigger than an acupuncture needle. Then I used a spoon and the knife to gouge a hole in the dry, compacted soil in its pot, and jammed the bit in. I artfully used some decorative rocks to hold it in place. And, in respect for its recent trauma, poured in a pitcher of water.

The same patient happened to come in not long after I finished operating, and I pointed out my work proudly. She narrowed her eyes and said, you know, if you had some potting soil and kept it damp it would probably root faster. 

Yeah, right. That would be cheating.

Before she left on winter sabbatical, the Actress gave me her giant container of MiracleGro.  “What’s this?” I asked her. “It’s plant food,” she answered. “Do I need this?” I queried. She just lifted one eyebrow.

I don’t know…maybe I should dig it out from under the kitchen sink. Would that be cheating?

(Deb tortures houseplants mostly in Wilmot; it’s true that you can get better results with a beer and a chat.)

Originally published in the Concord Monitor, 23 February 2017, as "Plant Manager."