Plant-astrophe

 I'm sitting in my home office, looking out onto the back yard.  There's a pot about 18" away from me on my glass-top desk containing the spikey-leafed "startups" of a Thanksgiving cactus.  I have one of these at my office and I recently snipped of the ends of several of the limbs and stuck them in this pot on my desk.  The plant in my "work" office originated from the plant in my "home" office -- well, except that plant doesn't exist anymore...

I had a giant schefflera and a corn plant that were each about 6.5' tall in our family room.  A curly fig on the kitchen island.  A green vine on the shelf above the sink; and two more in my meditation room, in different pots.  I had two peperomias -- one in the family room and the other also in my meditation room.  And I had three separate pots of varying sizes of a vine that isn't available in stores because the friend who "produced" it years ago never patented it.  He called it a "goldie vine" and gifting it to me, he said, "now don't propagate more of these."  (Alas, I did not obey this command, but it's truly my favorite plant of all time.)  I had a Chinese evergreen that I had nursed back to health over many years after an ill-fated imprisonment in my husband's office.  I had a small cactus -- a pup from one in my office that is thriving but this one at home just never caught on well.  And one other over-priced "designer" plant that I bought on impulse from the fancy plant store that I got the schefflera and corn plant from. 

I've been told I have a green thumb.  I think it's true.  It comes from my mother's side of the family.  But even my green thumb was no match for the plant-astrophe that struck my house a couple months back, killing every single one of my plants (except for the one green ivy above my kitchen sink) in one week's time.  How, you ask?  Death by salt water!

We have a water softener and sometimes we turn it off while we water the plants outside.  We usually run the water for a bit to "clear out" the tainted salt water in the system.  Well, recently, when we turned the softener off, we forgot to turn it back on again.  And when we did, the next time that it "cycled" through (which it does every night), the result was extremely salty water in the pipes.  

I was sitting in my meditation room, where the bulk of my plants lived.  And let me tell you, I think because of the combination of two excellent windows that face just the right direction and the daily praying and meditation that happens in that room, the plants that lived there were exquisite.  (And maybe I was just a little too proud of them and my green thumb.)  So imagine my surprise one day when I noticed that the leaves on the Chinese evergreen were turning yellow at a shocking rate.  And then I noticed the other plants in the room had dying and wilting leaves.  And then the curly fig appeared sick and the peperomia.  And the goldie ivy, all three of the beloved goldie ivy -- all heading to their graves (which is kinda a funny thought since plants are, you know, in the dirt).  

"What the heck??"  I said to myself.  And then I had a sudden recall -- a few nights back, after finishing the dishes, I had filled a class of water from the fridge.  I took one sip, first gagging and then spitting it into the sink.  "Ugh, SALT!"  So we ran the taps to clear out the offending salt.  Problem is, I forgot that I had watered my plants before dinner and naturally, I don't taste the dang water before I pour it on my plants.  Every single one of them (except the ivy above the sink apparently) had received a full baptism in the salty brine.  

As I began to put all this together in my mind, I went to one of the plants, lightly touched the soil and then patted it on my tongue.  Curses!  SALT!  I was right and I was never so sorry to be right in my life!

As I howled in grief and despair, my husband googled "what to do if you water your plants with salt water."  It said to dredge the pots with water.  And so we did.  We took every single pot outside, including the 6.5' tall ones (my husband is a saint), and gave them repeated soakings with the hose.  "There" I thought.  "Surely that will save them." (It didn't.)

Now I don't know if this is weird, but for days on end I prayed for my plants.  I mean, I really feel like I loved my plants!  Some of them had been with me literally for a couple decades!  But it was not to be.  One by one, I watched them wither and die.  And it really affected me, which also seemed a little weird.  But knowing what I know about myself -- how being in nature helps me to experience the presence of God -- it was as if my name had instantly been changed to "Ichabod," which means "the glory of the Lord has departed." (You get 20,000 bonus points if you can tell me without googling this OT scripture reference.)  Besides, didn't humankind trace their beginnings to life in a garden?

I began bit by bit to purchase replacement plants.  And I replaced all the dirt in my pots.  Thankfully I had a goldie ivy growing in my office, so I took cuttings from it and rooted enough to refill the 3 pots where they once grew.  And I already mentioned the Thanksgiving cactus that I replanted.

I don't know where I'm going with this except that when it was happening, and I was feeling really sad at the loss of my green friends, I kept asking myself, "Really Tammy, all this emoting over plants?"  But honestly they are a comfort to me.  A daily reminder of the miracle of creation.  A close-up glimpse of God's handiwork.  And as I implied earlier, a symbol of God's abiding presence in my life.

I have one "new" plant that I don't think is going to make it.  It's a creeping fig.  I cannot figure this plant out -- it is dropping leaves like crazy.  And no, I haven't salted it to oblivion.  I've talked to it, prayed for it, fertilized it, cleaned off the dead leaves and dying viny limbs, but it just doesn't seem destined to make it here. And that's OK. (Perhaps its name should be Ichabod.)  

Eventually I'll find something that does work in that spot.  Maybe I'll just propagate another goldie ivy.  Either way, I'll never stop thanking God for my plants.