Your Houseplant Is A Pussy

Since moving into an apartment which boasts its own garden, I’ve tried to learn a few things about plants.  Some part of me, despite whatever classes in biology I took or general common sense I’ve gained, still held on to this vague understanding of plants which reads not unlike the simple equation for photosynthesis (co2+h2o [add sunlight]= C6H12O6 (or gluecose)) and went, childish as it now seems, something like this: seed goes in dirt, add water, place in light=plant grows.

And there had, up until now, been little evidence to the contrary.  All around us, plants are growing.  We’re not even asking them to; it just happens.  Oh sure, I’ll admit that some need a little help with placement.  I get, for example, that some of the plants in the park are not native, that we had to bring them in and do some digging and potting, but then neither am I entirely native, my people having come from Scotland originally, so this is forgivable and no sign of weakness on their part as a kingdom.   Even at their most difficult, I felt that all plants needed was a bit of attention, water where there is little water, or some manner of pruning (an activity I have felt had more to do with our aesthetics than aiding a plant’s survival)  Sometimes I would  see a little old lady with a pot of water sprinkling over the poor-city trees whose roots are boxed in between curb and street, but even they, I suspected, would probably make it for quite some time on their own given all the goodness of the earth and the simplicity of plant life.

It turns out that, with many plants, this is absolutely false.  Many plants, I have discovered, are real pricks when it comes to survival.

Which brings me to the point of this: the absurdity of house plants.

It was during my recent visit to a nursery for my new garden that the absurdity presented itself, first as a discussion, then as an argument and, finally, as a kind of plea for that common sense that was being stripped away.  Houseplants, I was told, do not like the outdoor gardens.

Let me say that again, because, direct as the logic is, it doesn’t make any sense to me.  On first glance we can take the structure of the proposition to be vaild.  It seems perfectly reasonable that a House(something) would not necessarily be suited for and Outdoor(someplace).  But then you get into trouble with the concept of “plants.”

I’ll back up a bit to the actual conversation.

“What’s that intriguing plant over there?  The one with the huge leafs,” I asked the plant-man, whose stern, unfriendly gaze quickly ended any notion I’d arrived with that plant people were happy people.

“It’s a type of Lilly.”….was all he said…

…and so I pushed on.  “Well, great, I was thinking I’d put it in my garden.  I don’t get a whole lot of light back there, some, but really for only a couple of hours, and I thought that-”

“You can’t put that plant outdoors,”  he interrupted, and I waited for an explanation which didn’t come.

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s a houseplant.”

“Yes?”

“It’s an indoor plant,” he said, looking away towards another customer, as though the matter were settled.  I kept my gaze on him, trying to hold his attention and tried to gain some impression of him from the tattoos on his arms: bird, foreign letters in row, red star, cursive something.  No immediate help.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”  I took a little step to the left, putting myself in front of him.  “You’re saying that this big, leafy, shady plant wont grow in my big, leafy, shady garden?”

“Nope.  It’s an indoor plant.  All these plants here are indoor plants.”

“You mean the ones you’ve got indoors?” I tried out a smile, hoping he’d take an easier stance on the matter, but he pursed his lips in response and gave me my answer.

“That’s right.”

“So you’re telling me that these are indoor plants?”

“Right”

“…and that they wont grow in my outdoor (shady mind you, cause this is not a desert we’re talking about) garden?”

“That’s right.”

I paused, for a moment, waiting, as though there was a punchline or surprise waiting for me.  His explanation, so far, had all the warmth and education of a return policy, and seemed singularly contrary to everything I knew about nature, about things being organic or adaptive or life-giving, whatever the hell, just wrong.  And so I had to flush him out.  “Okay, but this seems ridiculous.  It’s a plant.”

“Yes.  A houseplant.”

“Granted, okay, a houseplant.  And you’re saying that a bloody plant can’t survive outdoors?”

“Not these, no.”

“Yes, but that makes no sense, just none.  Plants come from the outdoors.  Shit, they ARE the outdoors!  Besides rocks and rivers and mountains and all, like, I don’t know eighty percent of what we’re looking at and talking about are the plants.  That’s where all the rain and the sunshine and dirt come from, that’s everything they love!  That’s like saying that fish couldn’t survive in the ocean.  And plants are way less needy than fish.”

“These are indoor plants.  It’s just what they need.  They need the humidity and the temperature and all the conditions of the indoors.”

“Okay, well, at least that’s some explanation, but then how do you know what my humidity is in my place.  I leave the doors and windows open all the time.  So I figure that my indoors is roughly the same as my outdoors, only with less rain and sunshine and soil.  In fact, it seems to me that my indoors is missing three fourths of what most plants need.”

“Sir, they’re an indoor plant, simple as that.”

“Yes, but it’s not like all these species evolved indoors.  People had to decide that they wanted to bring sun-loving plants indoors.  They had to force them inside, wrangle them from the ground and punish them in the corner of a office building.  Even if some of them got used to it, it’s not as though we’ve fundamentally changed the nature of plants, as though leaves respond best to fluorecent bulbs and are calmed by the breeze of my rushing off to the copier.  I get that we’ve managed to get them in there, despite all odds, so doesn’t it seem borderline retarded to assert that this bush is so tempermental that it can’t handle a root-chilling 58 degrees?”

The plant-man didn’t want to say much more to me after this.  It was, in his eyes, and understandably after the way I carried on, a moot point.  Houseplants can’t survive the outdoors, simple as that, he seemed to say.

And it just seems so utterly absurd to me.  I know that things can get domesticated.  Happens to cats all the time.  But even they, I figure, could last outside, scrounge for a bit of milk or mice, or something.  And some would have a tough time of it, but many would make it.  I wouldn’t write off the whole, bloody species on account of the ‘house’ prefix in front of ‘cat.’  I didn’t buy the thing, mostly from embarrassment of having to be cordial during the ring-up with the same plant-man, partially from indignation, ‘stupid plant-man, what and idiot, where’s he think plants come from, anyhow?”

Meanwhile, I bought some shady plants.  Specifically, “outdoor” shady plants which, I was informed, have a shot at surviving in my, apprently hostile, little garden.  To date, the fuchias are on there way to plant heaven.  Meanwhile, my peace-lily, and old houseplant I’ve carried with me since moving to San Francisco six years ago, goddam loves it.  If this plant were a dog, it would be running free and jolly, slimmer and healthier than ever, chasing rabbits, barking happily at other dogs, the works, just loving the outdoors.  And all it needed was a little relocation from the kitchen to the outdoor garden.  Houseplants don’t like the outdoors?  Goddam Absurd.