I Was Once a Proudly Unhealthy and Depressed Plant Baby Killer

Today, my houseplants are flourishing because I’m growing healthier, too.

Elle Silver
Human Parts

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Image by wayhomestudio on Freepik

When I was a young woman, I killed a lot of houseplants until my mother stopped giving them to me. My mom was a plant queen, and she tried to pass the torch to me. My formative years took place in a 1970s household filled with plants. Plants suspended from the ceiling in macramé holders. Plants in handmade ceramic pots. Plants everywhere with their creepy vines that found their way onto your shoulder when you least suspected it (I’m looking at you, Spider plant).

When I went off to college in the late ’80s, my mother gifted me some houseplants to brighten my new dorm room. However, every plant she gave me died. Yes, even the Pothos, a popular indoor plant that’s next to impossible to kill. Doesn’t need much light; you don’t need to water it much. Hell, you can water it a lot, and it still doesn’t die. Well, I managed to kill it. Granted, it took a while. However, within a matter of months, the leaves were brown, wilted and/or shriveled.

Pothos on left, Spider plant on right. (Left photo by Roman Odintsov and right by Rachel Claire.)

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