Bad with Plants

Planty on the terrace in Lausanne, Switzerland. June 20, 2020.

I’ve tried to grow plans indoors and outdoors. I’ve tried to grow plants that people who know plants assure me that I “can’t kill.”

As reward, I’ve had even a cactus leap out of its pot to wither and die on the table, ending its life rather than submit further to my care.

Animals, at least, can clearly signal what they need: Food, water, walks, snuggles, playtime.

Thinking that perhaps I’d have more fun with plants that require work for reward—how about a little reverse psychology, no?—I’ve tried orchids and tomatoes. My orchid plant had flowers when purchased; the flowers fell off and left me with a sickly, trembling stalk and two leaves. Flowers never grew on that plant again. My tomato plant provided one anemic fruit that a squirrel chomped before it ripened, leaving the rest hanging on the vine.

All this to say: When a person brought a small plant to our house as a host gift for a dinner party, I felt a little sad for it. This nice little life form in a pot labeled “schlumbergera?” It wouldn’t live long.

Apologetically, I placed it in its plastic pot on an appetizer plate in the kitchen, where it stayed for the ensuing several months before I fully registered its presence again.

By golly, I realized, the thing had persisted.

Further months passed. The plant continued to live. Periodically, I’d notice it on its appetizer plate in its plastic pot and run it under the sink for a few seconds.

It didn’t thrive, particularly, but it didn’t die, either.

Spring arrived and marked the plant’s six months in my presence. Respect to the darn thing, I figured, counting the months off on my fingers after I ran it under the sink again.

Maybe it really wanted to live, this plant. And maybe I felt a modicum of flattery that it hadn’t yet tried to off itself.

I began to put the plant outside in the sun a bit during the day, when we had some sun and when I remembered its presence. I figured it’d like sun, as a succulent. (I base my idea that this is a succulent on nothing further than an entirely uneducated impression that it appears somewhat cactus-like. Yes, I could research “schlumbergera” on-line, but let’s not get too attached.)

On one sunny day, I passed into the kitchen for water and noticed that Planty—okay, yes, I named it; I can’t pronounce “schlumbergera”—had blown from the terrace table on which I’d set it. In fact, it hadn’t just blown over, it’d blown clear out of its plastic pot, which had rolled off the terrace and down into an inaccessible back alley five floors below the apartment.

I don’t have pots around for plants, given that plants and I don’t get along. However, I couldn’t leave Planty crushed by the wind on the terrace tiles, dirt strewn hither and yon. I rifled through our plasticware and found one reasonably suitable small bowl, into which I put Planty and as much dirt as I could scoop off the tiles.

Arnaud suggested we buy some mulch or dirt to help Planty better keep its place, but buying dirt would take effort that I didn’t want to make for a plant that had lasted longer than I’d expected and that couldn’t possibly last much longer than it had. Besides: Where can one buy one cup of dirt, anyway?

Perhaps I should suspect his highly convenient story, but only a few days after the wind incident, Arnaud “found” a partial bag of mulch near the trash cans.

I had no idea if the supposedly-found dirt had the right composition for Planty or if the notion of “the right kind of dirt” even made sense. I wondered as well if dirt could “go bad,” picking up germs or mold or bugs down by the trash cans in a plastic bag from a local electronics store. Yet I packed the dirt around Planty in its plasticware bowl and figured we’d just wait and see, because I certainly had no intention of buying supplies for a plant that I didn’t expect had many more months left.

Planty in his plasticware home, taking the sun on the terrace. Lausanne, Switzerland. May 21, 2020.

The plasticware bowl didn’t quite fit Planty; the top-heavy plant needed more of a base than a tiny round of plastic and dirt. It kept falling over when taking the sun of an afternoon. I’d periodically wander past the terrace windows and see it crushed on the terrace tiles.

I didn’t want to lose our plasticware bowl like Planty lost its original plastic planter pot. We don’t have a lot of plasticware. Further, each piece of plasticware we own gets regular rotation in the kitchen.

After several months, Planty’s hogging of an essential piece of the plasticware had become an inconvenience.

It took a bit of internal debate and Planty side-eyeing before I gave in and bought it a proper pot at a nearby flower shop. The pot has a hole in the bottom for drainage, which seemed like a good idea. (As with everything else related to Planty, I don’t plan to research this point, either.)

I even bought a small bag of dirt, despite requiring only one more cup. I guess I could need another cup again in the future. I’ll just hope dirt doesn’t, in fact, go bad.

Planty still has too much going on up top for its new, plant-specific pot: Twice we’ve caught it tumped over, roots akimbo and dirt everywhere. Maybe Planty’s less willing to stick it out with me than I thought.

However, as of this writing, Planty’s going strong:

Planty taking the air in his terracotta plant pot with a hole in the bottom and fresh, but possibly not “correct,” dirt. Lausanne, Switzerland. June 30, 2020.

Will he make it much past these photos? I have my doubts, given prior experience. Nothing about the past few months with Planty have changed the fact that I am bad with plants.

At least we’ll have these photos in memoriam. Along with a hole-in-the-bottom, otherwise useless pot and a bag of dirt I never wanted to buy in the first place.