It’s that time of year in my teaching job when work feels like a massive pile of mattresses that I have to scrabble around seeking handholds to scale until I can get over and slide down the other side into winter break, which is long and sweatpantsy and firelit and a little boozy.

But for now, I’m leaning on little comforts to help me over the heap. An excellent cup of coffee from Julie’s shop, Zanzibar’s. Speed-round friend meet-ups at unexpected places (hello, hot-tub night at Molly’s). Hate-watching the Great British Bake Off. Quiet time on that big yoga mat I told you about a while back, in the room filled with plants.

I have been a plant person ever since, I think, the sixth grade, when I won a crabbed little aloe vera in my very first auction. (Psst, Oma, we should go to an auction.)

The plant thing got pretty serious during the pandemic. My spouse said it might help him feel less cooped up if we had some foliage around the house, something he’s bad at. I thought this idea was meta, like we were living in a big terrarium, but I did hit up the plant shop near me that has a particularly nice selection of teensy cuttings that I kind of considered a challenge. They were certainly a distraction for what eventually became some grim times.

The baby plants were low-stakes learning. I figured out the right window for a hoya (see up top). Who’d have thought it would be east-facing? A half-dead grafted lemon tree became, with some amateur espalier work, an upward-growing behemoth that has so far yielded nearly 20 lemons. (Editor’s note: Until this year, the lemon has had its seasons mixed up, fruiting in summer, which I learned from a student. But Lady Lemon got it figured out this year … though the effort must have tuckered her out as she’s only made one perfect yellowing orb.)

Plant nerd highlight: I saw my unusual button succulent (my first successful non-beginner plant) growing in the wild on rocks and trees in Japan!

So now it’s me who likes having too many plants around. Tending them in the morning helps me get my thoughts collected before I head out into the world. Many are starts from others—whether they’re from my own herd or gifts from friends. Either way, they collectively feel like a plant community now.

And to that point, they’ve been good mentors. The plant-shop owner mentioned that one of my plants was perhaps not thriving—despite adequate water, occasional food, appropriate sun—because like most living creatures, plants are social. They want to be together. The guy on the left (below) had been sitting all lonely on a step outside—looking dead to the casual eye—until I brought him in, cut him back, set him next to others, and sang him “Champagne Supernova” during his convalescence. And guess what.

True fact: I have started more than 10 other plants from the polka-dotted plant in the middle, which began its life in my home with a series of near-death experiences until I grouped her with others. One of those offshoots is now under the care of my godson, who seems to have the gift himself.

My prayer plant got sick a while back, so I moved it to the special opps table (below). It took no time at all for the party-boy fern to reach out and now they seem to be holding hands. The prayer plant may still die, but at least it won’t die alone. (You’ll also see in the below shot that I just lopped off the top of my ficus to grow another one.)

Possibly I am just November-level cooked and reading too much into plants.

But also possibly: the world is more interconnected than I ever guessed. And I like to think that.

Happy almost-weekend. Let me now if you want a plant start.

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