2019 is all about grubcore. we’re talking freshly tilled soils. rotting tree bark. we’re talking forest floor duff. 2019 we’re writhing in the ground and eating dirt
To be a gardener is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control. A recognition of the bond of live things everywhere, among which we are only a small part of a vast and miraculous world, and from which we can learn a great deal about being better versions of ourselves.
Four years ago I was severely depressed for the first time, it’s not the most depressed I’ve ever been but it was pretty new to me back then, which made it worse. Basically everything was bad and hopeless and my sleeping habits were really fucked up. Most days I didn’t make it to the store before they closed (because I would be asleep) but as I started being able to cope with my depression I went to the big store that I lived close to pretty often, to buy frozen food cause I didn’t have the energy to cook food. So one day I was at the store to buy food and probably stare at the sweets and tell myself I couldn’t have any and be mean to myself or something. I hadn’t bought plants for a really long time because I had no interest in anything anymore, I don’t think I even really looked at them that much in stores anymore. But for some reason when I saw this little plant with only two, big, round green and yellow leaves I felt something, a connection? I felt like we were the same, that we needed eachother. I stood there for a long time with the little plant in my hand thinking that I can’t buy it, I would be wasting money, I don’t deserve buying a bunch of plants anyway. But I couldn’t leave it, so I didn’t. A name came to my mind very soon after meeting the plant. Sol is swedish for sun. It is a name that I adored when I was younger, I gave the name to one very important character that I created once, and I wanted to be named Sol. I had gotten over my obsession with that name by then, but I immedietly thought that I can’t name this plant Sol. I felt like I had too much history with that name. But I never came up with a new name. Every time I talked to the plant in my head the name would come up and I’d be like no, that’s not the name of this plant, get out of here! But eventually I accepted the name, it just was her name and I couldn’t change it.
Sol is a Peperomia obtusifolia, and she sparked my interest in plants again after my depression worsened, she has been with me for 4 years. When I got her she had only 2 leaves, and look at her now! She didn’t drop a single leaf ever until recently and she is still dropping leaves both young and old. I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t know if she will survive, but I really hope so. I’ve lost plants before but if this one dies, it will just feel like something’s missing
Speaking of ferns, this is a volunteer Phlebodium which sprung up in the pot one of my indoor orchids. Said orchid is a Phragmipedium hybrid that wants to stay constantly moist, so it sits in a dish of rain or distilled water. It will be interesting to see how this one does compared to my outdoor Phlebodium aureum, which tends to slow way down in the summer heat (possibly exarcerbated by dry substrate?)
