I carried a dead hibiscus cutting to the woods today. Three years ago, some neighbors were moving and they asked if we would plant-sit their hibiscus until they settled into new housing. I ran into the woman while hiking last year.
“Hey, I keep forgetting to text you, but do you still want that hibiscus?”
Even in the jungle of our cabin, it stood out. It was the only plant in a modern black pot. Its trunk was braided tightly, its branches spindly. It was aching in a way none of our other plants were, plants busy climbing and draping out of their various homes.
She twisted her face.
“Kelton! You were supposed to just let it die like everyone else!”
The home they’d left had been light filled and thus, plant filled. Upon moving, they had distributed their plants around the valley to various homes. We weren’t the only ones with a relic. Everyone else had just failed their mission. But our house was a plant house. It was like taking a cattle dog from a New York apartment to a ranch — its blossoming was inevitable. And blossom it had. We’d filled an entire fruit bowl with its shriveled fallen flowers of pink, red, and purple. Sisters strangling each other for the light.
She said it was ours. It had been years after all. Her new home didn’t have the same light, and it wouldn’t like it. Let it be.
We let it stay, but we didn’t let it be. We immediately set out to re-pot and realign. If the plant was going to stay, it was going to become part of the jungle. So we chopped off the whole tree, attempted to save the massive cutting through various measures, and put the root ball in a new pot with new soil for a new lease on life.
It has since exploded. The cutting did not, and thus, was thrown into the forest. Dead as the leaves on the ground. It lives on, freer, in its roots.
What an easy metaphor for life. What an endorsement for cutting off your hair, for donating half your closet, for starting somewhere new. What a way to approach life.
I didn’t have my first plant until I was 29. I didn’t have a plant that I bought for myself until I was 30. Plants didn’t occur to me. I barely even ate them.
I didn’t grow up with plants. I don’t remember there ever being a plant in the house. My closest relationship with a plant was the tree that held our tree house. I loved parks and wilderness and the outside, but I never brought it in.
I think plants have a bit of a reputation for being difficult, which is funny, given how many of them will do nearly anything to survive. My first plant purchase was a Thanksgiving Cactus, no more than three inches tall. It sat in its tiny pot next to my bedside doing nothing for years. And how could it? I never changed its pot. It had no room to change, to evolve.
I evolved though. One plant turned two to three to many, many, many more than three, and it takes time to get to know them as individuals. I’d never known a hibiscus. It made the most beautiful flowers, and we thought, surely that’s a good sign. But my mother-in-law took one look at it, and in a way that is much more polite than this, said it looked miserable. She is the one who suggested hacking off the entire tree.
The entire tree? Surely it couldn’t survive that.
But it did. Plants are tougher than you think. Many of them like a little root tussle, they can handle being laid on the ground while you sort things out, and a good lot of them would love to show you what they can do with a bigger pot. I think of plants when I look at job descriptions. Everyone wants to hire the plant that fits the pot, but then the plant gets bored. You gotta hire someone who can grow into the role a little, let them bloom. Then, of course, get them an even bigger pot.
The mountains are my bigger pot. For all my complaints about the difficulties of making friends and finding work and belonging, my roots are happier. I am more stable, producing more leaves, and nearing a bloom — perhaps a little out of season, but that’s the joy of this cabin. It is its warmest in the deep winter when the air is still and the sun pours through the south-facing windows. The plants all bloom in the winter up here in the alpine meadow, in the safety of their logs, once plants themselves.
These indoor kids, they’re all served by good care. Not experience or expertise, just the kind of care that stems from curiosity, from a deep desire to know and the willingness to try. So there are frequent changes. New pots, new locations in the house, new misting schedules and watering methods, new fertilizers, new bug traps, new soil mixes, and new haircuts. Oh do they love a pruning. It is the easiest way to feel bare, but it is the easiest way to feel new. They’re all audience to the trees outside, undressing for their winter cleanse.
I’m with them in this. I have four boxes in the car of clothes pruned from the closet. I have two more boxes of just things pruned from the house. I have pruned my career, pruned my network, and I look forward to pruning my hair when it stops pruning itself.
You can prune other things too. You can prune your tabs, your files, your emails. You can prune your habits, less of this and less of that. You can even prune your expectations. Maybe instead of a great week you’ll simply have a great coffee, just one, that one that is somehow eight dollars but tastes like a becoming of something. You can even prune that, if you want to exfoliate your esophagus in the gas station essence of instant Folgers. You can prune and trim and clip back the layers to start from the very beginning.
You can, if you really need to, chop the whole top off to see what awaits. You might find your leaves grow back larger than you’d ever known them to grow. You might find yourself bushier, busier. You might find yourself to be something entirely else, the cuttings given back to the soil, to the earth, ever thankful for what you left behind.
Thank you Kelton for the great article. I decided to sign up today.
I wanted to share a quick story about my brother's tree. When my brother was born my mom was gifted a potted schefflera tree. My mom loved it and called the tree Shelley.
After 45 years this tree became huge in it's pot. Yes, it was a 45 year old tree in a pot.
10 years ago (Shelley was 38 at the time) my parents decided to travel the country in an RV and asked me to take care of it. Mind you, I have a brown thumb. Every single plant I have ever owned has died on me. I told my parents this but they said it'd be fine if I just gave her enough water and sunlight.
But unfortunately, Shelley died on me too. I was able to keep her going for about 7 years but I left her outside in direct sun one day and the leaves burned.
I was devasted because it was one of the few things my mom had of my brother's, who died in a motorcycle accident 2 decades ago.
I called my mom while my parents were travelling and informed them about my mistake. I cried on the phone as I knew this tree meant a lot to her since it was my brother's.
But to my surprise she said it was okay and not to worry about it. She informed me that she suspected I would probably kill the tree so she took three branches the last time she pruned it and replanted them. 1 of the stalks took root and was going healthy in a new pot in their RV. She calls the new schefflera the Child of Shelley.
Anyway, my parents are no longer travelling and have the Child of Shelley in their dining room. It's a small thing but still young and vibrant. My mom said she liked having a smaller Shelley in her RV and felt like the other one was getting too big anyway (I mean it was a 47 year old tree in a lot).
I haven't thrown Shelley away. Her dried stalks are on my back porch sitting in this massive pot by the door. A weed has taken her place and shares the same pot that Shelley is in. I'm wondering if one of these days I can resurrect Shelley from a dried root but I doubt it. I may just have to take a pruning from the Child of Shelley to make Shelley the 3rd.
I have no children, no pets, but I was given a small money tree by a friend, bought at the airport as a gift to me in 2009. It is now 5 feet tall and has travelled with me to over half a dozen new homes in different states. Usually on the floor of the passenger seat of my car. Thriving. His name is Pete.