My gardens this year have been an unexpected delight. I think having plants has been very good for me mentally, as I have a few little things – okay, a lot of little things – to take care of. I bet I’ve even stopped momming my kids so hard as a result. Not long ago I wrote about all the ways the gardens have taken over my outdoor space and become a soothing daily routine. Mornings, some people drink their coffee and think. Some people write in their journals. And some people drink their coffee and think, write in their journals, and then haul repurposed cat litter jugs filled with water all over the block trying to keep their plants from dying in the overpowering heat of a Montana summer day.
Despite all the greenery in my outdoor vicinity, I have had nary a houseplant in recent times. I used to have such things, spider plants and aloes. My mom had snake plants and monstera. Christmas cactus. A story I like to retell is from 1423 Park Avenue in Richmond, VA, where I lived when I was 8. It was a row house, narrow and long, and when it was built in 1895 they kept a central atrium open to the elements, no roof. By the time we moved in 85 years later, skylights covered that space, making it a plant haven. My dad installed a pulley system and hung enormous ferns way up near the top, lowering them for watering. I used to like to roller skate through the waist-high dangling plants during this weekly event, brushing through the fronds like I was in a little-kid roller derby.
It’s been years since I had anything like this, and by choice. Houseplants are dusty. They surround themselves with plant detritus, bits of dried leaf and overspilled potting soil. They require care and they look at you forlornly if you don’t water them. Sometimes they grow lanky tendrils and unsightly vines and I can’t bring myself to clip them. The pots themselves are often dirty. See how I came up with so many reasons to avoid houseplants?
Sadly, the Montana winter is not a gardening season. We have approximately five months to do all our outside growing stuff between May and September, and then the snow falls and it stays until the next spring. It’s easy to forget that on a 97° day in July, but soon enough, I’ll be layering straw over my community garden plot and cutting back the lilies in my flowerbed. And then what? Seven months of momming my kids hard, I guess.
Or I could go to my local garden center and carefully select a houseplant. Okay, two houseplants. I will talk to them. I will water them. I’ll spray them in the shower to wash the dust off.1
It turns out that momming a houseplant is a lot easier than momming my kids.
Thanks for the tip, Lisa!
Before long it will be Anna’s Little Northside Shop of Horrors!
You’re welcome, and congrats on the new indoor inhabitants 🪴