Life and Death of an Indoor Plant

My friend, Mama of Mama’s Empty Nest and I have found something else in common.  We kill indoor plants.

Now this is not necessarily a good thing to share, but since we are online, there is no way to really blame each other for our utter failures.

Oh, I know people whine about growing things indoors, but we are not just whiners.  We have exceptional tales to tell.

Adventures in Real Life Indoor Planting

I tried nurturing “real” plants for many years, but even the guaranteed tried and true varieties only lasted moments in the toxic atmosphere of my home.

Thinking the poor things were strangling from drought, I would water  – well, maybe over-water –  and wound up with overflows, muddy looking carpets, and sudden death (of the plants).

Spraying for blights and other crawly things amounted to more polluted air inside.   I wasn’t out to  kill humans, so had to stop that, and guess what – the critters won.  The plants lost.

Watching living things droop and finally expire from over attention or abandonment is a painful process.

And although real living plants are supposed to be healthful indoors, it suddenly dawned on me that an alternative to life and health might be beauty and serenity at home.  And this meant delving into the world of fake foliage.  In other words: PLASTIC!

Yes, Plastic HAD to be the Answer!

So I gave up trying to grow living things indoors (except for my son, of course, who has somehow survived).

I figured plastic plants might live.  Does this make sense?

Things started out just fine.

The new, look-real varieties looked so real that I even planted some outside.  The geraniums I potted for the deck  looked spectacularly real –  from a distance anyway.  I hate lying to the public though, so we don’t have geraniums on the deck anymore.  It’s much too hot out there for them.

But the indoor story is that I quickly purchased a stately fake (yes, plastic) rubber plant.  It was almost as tall as a tree and  I called it Mr. Stately, because it stood so handsomely in the corner of the living room.  Big green leaves added a flavor of the tropics.  And,  Ahhhhh!  No maintenance.  No care.  No watering, fertilizing or spraying.

Then, one day, a leaf fell off.

I am not kidding.  It just fell off.

Well that did not make too much difference since there was plenty of foliage left.

Then another leaf fell off. 

And another.

Maybe Mr. Stately was standing in too much sunlight so it weakened the connections.  So I moved him to a shadier locale.

More leaves fell off.

Mr. Stately was not so handsome anymore.

And finally, my plastic rubber plant died!

So Mama of Mama’s Empty Nest – can you top this story? Do we have this in common too – the death of plastic plants?

I haven’t given up on indoor gardening yet though.  There is now a lovely plastic palm tree in my living room that really does look like the real thing.

It has only lost one palm frond so far.

Related articles

• How to Clean Indoor Plants (do indoor plants need cleaning?) (patrickbelford.wordpress.com)
• Indoor green wall/Indoor landscaping (chinaforefrontinternatioanal.wordpress.com)

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