The Greening of Winter

We nurture them. We step on them. We admire them. We eat them. In all earnestness, we owe them our lives. Plants.

Growing up in the countryside of Indiana and Wisconsin, flora surrounded me. May Day wild flowers offered from grubby little hands made Mom and the neighbors smile. “Borrowing” early field corn for dinner provided adventure and sustenance. Digging up a pitchfork of potatoes in the fall was akin to discovering a treasure in our own backyard. And wild berries satisfied our sweet teeth and stained our fingertips red, purple, and blue. Living in California, I embraced the endless growing season. Roses became a passion and at last count, before I moved, I had 68 glorious and fragrant bushes.

I have found, living in a climate less conducive to year-round blooms challenging, and, at times disheartening. Occasionally, in this cold, white season, I stoop low and purchase a bouquet of grocery store roses. They droop, they are too uniform, and they smell like the plastic wrap they come in. That’s why, I have followed in the footsteps of my mother and aunts and grandmother and grandfather before me and pray at the altar of the humble houseplant. Having something alive, green, and at times blossoming in my home is an elixir for winter white-outs and blues.

I coddle a dozen houseplants year-round. Each is spectacular in its own way and each has a story. They range from a Thanksgiving blooming cactus my son gave me years ago and an African violet in honor of my mother, to a struggling succulent in a hanging planter that I molded out of clay at one of those in-vogue yoga retreats.

I water my plants, fertilize, and mist them. I praise them all: from the snake plant to the Norfolk Island pine that served as a Christmas tree a few years back. My aloe plant derived from one that was a centerpiece for a dear friend’s wedding rehearsal dinner over 25 years ago. The Creeping Charlie came home with my children when they were each in second grade. The riot of tulips, I am now attending in the foyer, is a holiday gift from yet another dear friend. And perhaps, my favorite, is the spider plant. It’s the progeny of my maternal grandmother’s plant. It sends out shoots, tipped by babies. I think of it as a family tree of sorts. When my children settle, they will receive a shoot of their own to nurture in their homes. I imagine they will pass on the tradition…and that thought makes even a blizzarding day feel warm and cozy.

Plants. They feed us, they nurture us, they entertain us, and they have us wrapped around their little green buds, stems, and leaves. My green shut-ins will keep my spirits up until that first crocus shoots through lingering snow, and the robin tells me that outside the grass is coming back and my world waking up.

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