What My Plants Have Taught Me (So Far)

Recently, my mom asked me how many plants I had and where they all came from. As we were talking, I admitted something I’d been noticing: I’ve been putting off watering them each week.

I’ll think, I’ll do it tomorrow. Then tomorrow turns into the next day… and then the next. It’s not that I don’t water them. I do. I just keep pushing it off until I can’t ignore it anymore.

There was a time when watering my plants was one of my favorite rituals. I’d put on music, move from room to room, check for new leaves, trim away the old ones, and give each plant the attention it needed. It never felt like a chore.

The summer after my dad died, we ended up with a terrible fungus gnat infestation in my plants. Getting rid of them became a project that seemed to drag on forever. I had to transplant a lot of plants, and in the process, I ended up getting rid of several.

A year after that debacle, my friend Suzanne shared her low-effort houseplant watering method, and I thought, low-effort? That is exactly what I need! I began using watering bulbs for my larger plants, the ones that started the gnat problem, and I haven’t had a gnat since.

Why haven’t I put watering bulbs in all of my plants so I don’t have to water anything whatsoever? Well, I still have to maintain the bulbs and spray the leaves of all my plants. Plus, a lot of my plants are too small to have a bulb inserted, so I never bothered doing all of them.

As I’m writing this, I’m noticing that the summer of the gnats was when watering my plants quietly changed from something I loved into something I simply had to do.

Friggin’ insects.

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This one came from my friend and massage therapist, Julie. She gave it to me after my dad died, and I’ve treasured it ever since.

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This peace lily…there is nothing peaceful about this dude. He is fussy, as most peace lilies tend to be. If I miss watering day by even a day, he lets me know immediately.

I bought him for Anna’s room when she was a teenager, and I adopted him back when Anna moved away to college.

He’s probably overdue for transplanting. Don’t tell him I said this.

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I am always in a state of change with my plants.

Eventually, many of them will need a new pot, more space, or a different kind of care. Sometimes that feels like a burden.

I want them to flourish. I want them to thrive. But I also realize that caring for something living is a responsibility. It takes time, patience, and work.

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I’ve shared my fiddle leaf figs here over the years. One of them was named Fern (although I don’t actually know which one is Fern anymore…you’ll see why in a minute).

Fern almost died in 2020 after she was accidentally sprayed with mosquito spray while getting sun on the patio. She hung on, slowly recovered, and somehow found a way to keep growing.

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Here is the other one we bought in 2021 at IKEA:

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And here they both are now:

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This monstera was a birthday gift from my brother and sister-in-law in 2020.

Here is how she started:

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These pilea in the clay pot on the left are actually three separate plants that I combined into one big pot. A couple came from friends who had plants that were struggling, so I decided to take them in and see if I could bring them back.

Apparently, they just needed a little community. 💜

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Maybe that’s what my plants have been teaching me all along:

Nothing stays exactly the same.

The way we care for something changes.

There are seasons when we struggle, seasons when we need more help, and seasons when we grow in ways we never expected.

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Do you have a plant that has a special place in your home? I’d love to hear its story.

And if you’re not a plant person, what is something in your home that brings you unexpected joy?