In these wearying times, I’m grateful for my house plants.
And for a whole lot of reasons, this is A Very Good Thing.
Greeting me every morning, my leafy menagerie rests on a rectangular coffee table only a few steps from our bed. Here, I see nearly a dozen plants in clay and ceramic pots, mostly with matching saucers. There’s a larger pot to the left as well, placed on a cracked piano stool that still swivels. I get to look at all of this greenery while doing my yoga practice, too, since the only place my mat fits is smack in front of the table.
And given that the table is parallel to a large window facing our backyard, the plants get a great view, too.
I suspect that most indoor plants come from a nursery, garden center or hardware store.
But none of my plants were purchased from any of these places.
Instead, each pot has its own back story.
Two are avocado plants started from big shiny pits, one of which already had a fat two inch root growing out of it when I sliced the avocado in half. Despite the fact that this fruit is a mega cash crop in California, I wasn’t very successful with growing them when I lived there. But for whatever reason, these avos are thriving at nearly three feet high, and show no signs of stopping.
There are also two jade seedlings from the beach town where I last resided, as well as tulips in a tin turquoise container. Rounding out the group is dual golden pothos, taken from cuttings snipped from a meandering plant at a friend’s beauty salon in California. Similar to a philodendron but with less pointy leaves and more variegated hues, they not only take me back to the place where I used to get my hair done, but also remind me of my dear friend.
There are also three lemon plants started from seeds. All are very slow growers; I know, too, that they’ll never bear fruit. But they’re here because they remind me of my roots, no pun intended. After all, I’m a second generation native of the Golden State, and remember picking this citrus all year round from a tree in my childhood yard.
The house where I grew up had a big grassy backyard with borders of pale pink poppies and cherry red azaleas; a row of pomegranate trees, and the afore mentioned lemon tree.
But I don’t recall any indoor plants, which might be why I never acquired any until I left home.
It helped that this was the 1970s, and the houseplant craze was in full force.
Going along with this time, there were lots of how-do books on inside greenery then, too.
The one I remember best is a nearly 100-page illustrated book from the editors of Sunset Magazine. The unofficial bible of houseplants for its time, the title is succinct: How To Grow Houseplants. Given that the authors wanted
readers to find success, plants here included the snake plant, which was accurately heralded as a houseplant
that couldn’t be killed.
Spider and wandering Jew plants were also in the mix since they were cheap; grew fast, and were easy to maintain. Another plus: these latter two plants paired perfectly with those crafty macrame holders made out of twine, which complemented the hippie homespun look so popular then in millions of American living rooms.
But since then, I’ve learned that houseplants do way more than making a space feel homey.
First, there’s this no brainer:
Given that an astounding 85 percent of our lives are spent indoors, houseplants are a simple way to bring nature directly into our homes. That fact is even more of a benefit for those who must stay inside more than others, bound by age, illness or a permanent disability.
And, since plants replace carbon dioxide with fresh oxygen, houseplants also improve indoor air quality.
One study went further, concluding that even the soil in potted plants can help clean the inside air we breathe. Other research by NASA concluded that indoor plants can further improve what we breathe in by removing cancer-causing chemicals such as formaldehyde and benzene, common ingredients found in many household cleaning products.
However, the biggest and most immediate benefit for me is that my plant table always make me smile, even when
I’m having a tough day.
Finally, my plant table is a living example of this: they show me that winter never fails to turn into spring.
And for a whole lot of reasons, this is A Very Good Thing.
Greeting me every morning, my leafy menagerie rests on a rectangular coffee table only a few steps from our bed. Here, I see nearly a dozen plants in clay and ceramic pots, mostly with matching saucers. There’s a larger pot to the left as well, placed on a cracked piano stool that still swivels. I get to look at all of this greenery while doing my yoga practice, too, since the only place my mat fits is smack in front of the table.
And given that the table is parallel to a large window facing our backyard, the plants get a great view, too.
I suspect that most indoor plants come from a nursery, garden center or hardware store.
But none of my plants were purchased from any of these places.
Instead, each pot has its own back story.
Two are avocado plants started from big shiny pits, one of which already had a fat two inch root growing out of it when I sliced the avocado in half. Despite the fact that this fruit is a mega cash crop in California, I wasn’t very successful with growing them when I lived there. But for whatever reason, these avos are thriving at nearly three feet high, and show no signs of stopping.
There are also two jade seedlings from the beach town where I last resided, as well as tulips in a tin turquoise container. Rounding out the group is dual golden pothos, taken from cuttings snipped from a meandering plant at a friend’s beauty salon in California. Similar to a philodendron but with less pointy leaves and more variegated hues, they not only take me back to the place where I used to get my hair done, but also remind me of my dear friend.
There are also three lemon plants started from seeds. All are very slow growers; I know, too, that they’ll never bear fruit. But they’re here because they remind me of my roots, no pun intended. After all, I’m a second generation native of the Golden State, and remember picking this citrus all year round from a tree in my childhood yard.
The house where I grew up had a big grassy backyard with borders of pale pink poppies and cherry red azaleas; a row of pomegranate trees, and the afore mentioned lemon tree.
But I don’t recall any indoor plants, which might be why I never acquired any until I left home.
It helped that this was the 1970s, and the houseplant craze was in full force.
Going along with this time, there were lots of how-do books on inside greenery then, too.
The one I remember best is a nearly 100-page illustrated book from the editors of Sunset Magazine. The unofficial bible of houseplants for its time, the title is succinct: How To Grow Houseplants. Given that the authors wanted
readers to find success, plants here included the snake plant, which was accurately heralded as a houseplant
that couldn’t be killed.
Spider and wandering Jew plants were also in the mix since they were cheap; grew fast, and were easy to maintain. Another plus: these latter two plants paired perfectly with those crafty macrame holders made out of twine, which complemented the hippie homespun look so popular then in millions of American living rooms.
But since then, I’ve learned that houseplants do way more than making a space feel homey.
First, there’s this no brainer:
Given that an astounding 85 percent of our lives are spent indoors, houseplants are a simple way to bring nature directly into our homes. That fact is even more of a benefit for those who must stay inside more than others, bound by age, illness or a permanent disability.
And, since plants replace carbon dioxide with fresh oxygen, houseplants also improve indoor air quality.
One study went further, concluding that even the soil in potted plants can help clean the inside air we breathe. Other research by NASA concluded that indoor plants can further improve what we breathe in by removing cancer-causing chemicals such as formaldehyde and benzene, common ingredients found in many household cleaning products.
However, the biggest and most immediate benefit for me is that my plant table always make me smile, even when
I’m having a tough day.
Finally, my plant table is a living example of this: they show me that winter never fails to turn into spring.
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