Every fall and every spring, the semiannual migration of house plants occurs. The rising and falling of the outside temperatures is the signal for our potted flora to be moved into and out of the house.
The spring move is always such a relief for everyone. For a few months at least, our houses are free of the horticultural horde that lived with us all winter. The plants are delighted to be back outside, where no one cares how much they drip and shed.
Those problems stem from overcrowding. While our plant population grows, our houses don’t. Every fall more plants are squeezed into the same amount of space that last year’s plants occupied. Hostilities are bound to occur.
Most plants are well-behaved, considerate house guests. A few are obnoxious, and occasionally, a few can be downright awful. Once, one of our plants, a venerable old fern of enormous girth, was particularly unpleasant. It littered the carpet with dead fronds and managed to hog most of the light for itself. The other plants were not fond of that fern.
Then there was the split-leaf philodendron, which decided to expand its territory and began spreading out all over the living room. It almost got to the television before we trimmed it.
Occasionally, the English ivy gets restless and sends an army of vines roaming up the walls and across the floor. Last year a vine sneaked up on a little begonia, strangled it and commandeered its pot!
The most intimidating plant of all was a huge cactus that had been in our family for years. It had spent its youth in a neighbor’s yard. When that neighbor moved away, Taller Half dug it up, potted it and brought it home. We named it “Hulk” because it was large, green and looked mean. Hulk was an exotic plant, absolutely bristling with long, sharp spines. His lethal looks made the other plants nervous.
Last fall Hulk had to stay on the porch. He and the porch railing had gotten attached and couldn’t be parted. During a very cold spell, Hulk was fatally bitten by frost, turned a sickly yellow and died.
We mourned Hulk’s death, but the porch and the other plants did not. In fact, we began to think the porch rail incident was not an oversight on our part, but rather a planned ambush by the other plants to make sure he didn’t return to their inside sanctuary.
Laura Moore can be emailed at lehmoore1@gmail.com.
