Houseplant Dialogues

The Poor Pink Plant :(

2009-08-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the pink plant is no longer with us. She hasn't been doing well lately, and now, well, her pot is sitting with the other plants, with just a little Pink Plant still showing. Her tiny branches aren't even green inside anymore.

I have also been having gnat problems (the spider plant and Bruno have had the most trouble, particularly the spider plant right now), so the pink plant (a hypoestes) won't be replaced until I'm sure that the gnats are no longer with us.

I hate to kill the tiny things... they're my friends,... when they're not busy killing my plants. They are fond of laying eggs amongst the roots of houseplants, and they and their offspring eat the plants. But the tiny things are more under control than they were before, so I hope to be able to soon bring a pink plant, II, to live with us.

"Mariah?" says Bruno. "I miss the pink plant. I don't know if I want another one."

"Of course we have to have another one, dear," I say. "The pink plant would have wanted us to."

See? Even the other plants are mourning.

Spider Catching

2009-06-22T22:37:00.000-07:00

"And then she softly said, 'Come on, little spider. I'm not going to hurt you. Come into my cup, and I'll take you outside, little one.' And then Wex told her, after she caught the spider, that it was very calming to watch her catch spiders and things," the pink plant told Bruno, who had missed the whole incident.

"Is Mariah always like that when she catches spiders?" he asked.

"Yup," said the spider plant. "And when she catches moths and flies and pretty much anything else. She croons just as softly and soothingly to them as she does to us."

"I've seen her take spiders down the three floors to let them go, before," said Bruno, "but I've never seen her catch them."

"Well, technically we didn't see her catch it," retorted Sylvie. "It was hiding under the table most of the time, and by the time she caught it, it was on the side of the table, just barely out of my vision. And I was the closest one to it."

"OK. Maybe you didn't see it, but you heard it," muttered Bruno. He continued a little louder, "What else did she say to it?"

"Well, she did lecture it about how she didn't want it to run onto her head, and how it probably didn't want to be on the top of her head, anyway, but that was about it," responded Sylvie.

Rain

2009-06-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

"It's been nice and wet lately," said Bruno. "I'm not close enough to the rain to feel its sweet drops on my leaves, but the world is all fresh and clean."

"Mariah has been enjoying it, too," said Sylvie. "Earlier today she ran back and forth several times while it was just starting to pour. And didn't you hear how she laughed ecstatically that last time she ran up the stairs?"

"And that rainbow--I can't see it from this side of the apartment, but she said she could see it from her bedroom window. She took a nice picture of it, she said."

Nightmares

2009-05-29T19:09:00.001-07:00

"I wonder what's wrong with Mariah today?" asked Sylvie. "She didn't seem to be herself this morning when she was watering us, although she was as careful as she always is that everyone was taken care of."

"I don't know," responded the pink plant. "She had cereal for breakfast, too, instead of making something. That's never a good sign."

"She didn't even dance around in the front room this morning," added the spider plant. "I always like to watch her dance."

"Well, when she was busy stroking my leaves earlier, she was talking about nightmares she had last night," called out Bruno from just outside the open front door. "She says she didn't sleep well at all."

"Oh, the poor little thing!" exclaimed Sylvie. "I wish there was something we could do to cheer her up. After all, she is always so good to us. She makes sure to cut off my roses when they wilt, and she breaks off all of my yellow leaves for me."

"She always has a kiss for me, and she loves to stroke my long leaves," said the spiderplant.

"Mariah was so excited when my new flower opened up!" remembered Bruno. "And she always likes to say hi to me when she comes home."

"Mariah was really careful with the spider plant and me when she took us home on the airplane," said the pink plant. "She took good care of my roots and opened the plastic bag I was in as often as she could in the airport and on the plane."

"But how could we possibly cheer her up?" asked Sylvie. "We can't give her hugs. Bruno, did she say anything else about her nightmares?"

"She didn't seem to want to describe her dreams," said Bruno, "but she did say that she dreamed her great-grandmother died. And you all know how much she loves her great-grandmother--her only living great-grandparent."

They all nodded thoughtfully.

"She says that last night before she went to bed, she knew she would probably have nightmares, when she couldn't help but think about the description she read about how babies are aborted, and the pain they feel. She just hugged her doll Dorothy tighter."

"Mariah is so tender-hearted, isn't she?" whispered Sylvie.

"And then," continued Bruno, "she played her harmonica for a while to try to calm down, but when she fell asleep, the dreams came anyway. I've seen her cry a few times today."