Hemiphytophilia

A journal entry about a house plant

Above the desk in my bedroom, a sprawling green plant hangs from the bar over my window. In the morning hours, the sun shines onto its spade-shaped leaves, through the thin prayer flags I purchased from a street vendor in Nepal, and, if I’m working from home, directly into my eyes.

Though I may squint at my financial models and contracts, I never lower the blinds. My tech-bro friends tell me “viewing morning sunlight” is good for you, which is ironic coming from them to me.

I bought this plant at a weekend market in the little mountain town of Basalt last summer. If you had encountered the crunchy local who sold it to me—her hair in big braids, wearing a woven shirt that looked like it could have purchased from same farmer’s market, talking about her favorite flowers and places in the valley to forage mushrooms—you would have never guessed there was a sticker on the underside of the pot that said the plant was grown in California. Well, there was.

After I purchased the plant, but before I discovered the sticker, I hung the plant from the little hooks next to the ceiling handles in the back seat of my car where you’re supposed to hang suits, or whatever. For the rest of the trip, the plant lived there instead, gently swinging with the winding turns as I drove around town. I left my windows cracked whenever I parked the car to give the plant a bit of fresh air.

I wanted to keep the plant in its mobile home, but I was worried once I left the cool mountains and returned to the front range that it would get baked like it was in an air fryer.

My doc informed me that, because mold lives in all potted plants’ soil, and because I’m so allergic to mold that I can’t smell half the time, I shouldn’t keep any plants in my room.

You should always listen to your doctor, most of the time. This time, I reasoned that I may hold a natural antipathy toward mold, but I also hold a strong affinity for plants. So, against my doctor’s advice, olfactory inhibitor it might be, the defiant plant hangs in my room.

The reason I bought this plant is because it’s one of those vines that slowly grow out from its base, wrapping up anything it can get its arms around. That zest for life is as admirable trait in a plant as it is in a person and I had always wanted one of my own.

As far as I can tell, it’s a heartleaf philodendron, native to the Caribbean and Central America. Philodendron means “tree-lover” in Greek. If I’m careful, and lucky, in a decade or so when the plant is mature it will produce white flowers.

My boss recently informed me that, in addition to the ski roof box he’s trying to sell, he’s also trying to get rid of a houseplant. He recently stepped up the ladder of ‘living things under his care’ and got himself a child.

His one-year-old son keeps trying to clamber into the pot where the plant lives so, he says, the plant must go. I guess it had to be one of them. My boss has had the plant for seven or eight years, but apparently seniority doesn’t count for much these days. Such a shame—his plant might have been close to finally showing some flowers.

I’d take the plant off his hands, but my doctor says I shouldn’t have plants in my room.

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I turned on dark mode for the blog. Let me know if you think I should keep it or revert to the old standard white background. As always, thanks for spending some of your time with me.

Cover photo by Zach Reiner on Unsplash.