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Sometime in my forties, I became obsessed with Florida trees that struggled to survive. I also became attracted to dying and houseplants. Lush, healthy plants waiting for me at the front of Trader Joe’s appealed to me, but not as much as, say, the dying money tree completely out of its pot at ALDI.

This obsession started with a dying plant at Walmart, a purple waffle plant. It looked like it was completely dead, but a powerful urge to nurse it back to life overtook me, and nothing else would do but me having this plant. The cashier gave me 10% off because of its condition which, honestly, was awful.

“Did it press its nose against the glass and wag its tail?” my husband asked when I explained to him — through tears, no less — that I had to rescue this plant from the trash heap.

That purple waffle plant lived for several years (all it needed was a good long drink of water), and along the way picked up more than a few friends. My poison thumb (I historically killed plants with love) has slowly changed color, if not to a solid green one, well, a gentle sage, or perhaps lime, thumb. I’m assisted in no small part by the Planta app and a couple of friends who possess that mystical ability to divine what a plant needs by looking at it.

I can’t really explain it, other than chalking it up to perimenopause, but trying to save dying plants has somehow become my hobby.

During Hurricane Milton, a downed power line set a house on fire. The house was empty, except for two cats, and only one of those survived. We covered it in the paper, and the house is fairly close to mine, so I offered to take a photo.

It was awful; looking at the charred remains of someone’s home made me feel physically ill. But what kept coming to mind were the plants that looked like they were mostly hanging on by a thread. Finally, I texted the woman — Davida — who had lived there and asked if she’d mind if I took them and tried to nurse them back to health. She didn’t have a way to move them to where she was temporarily staying and she said yes, I could have them. I told her she could have them back whenever she wanted, but until then I’d look after them.

The Little Palm Trees That Could

Initially, she and I both thought she had two plants — both frangipanis — so I brought those home. Davida said a third plant, a palm garden that had lived outside her front door, was a total loss. She also mentioned that she’d had it since someone bought it to her grandfather’s funeral some 20 years ago.

I asked my friend Toffer — who happens to be the City of Gulfport’s horticulturalist — to take a look at the frangipanis, and she made some suggestions to help keep one from dying and to nurse the other one back to health.

Then she looked at the palm garden.

“I don’t think this is dead,” she said, pointing to new green shoots. Most of the pot was burned away and yes, there was a lot of dead stuff, but the palms were trying to come back.

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I repotted the palm garden and the almost-dead frangipani, and while the verdict is still out on the latter, it makes me smile to see the palm garden struggling back to life. I like to think somewhere in that palm garden, her grandfather’s spirit is nudging the plants along.

Some days we can all use a little hope and love to keep us going, right?

I love writing about trees and plants. Here’s a few stories I wrote about a plucky little tree in the Florida Keys.

Have You Met Fred the Tree? Introducing the Keys’ Quirkiest Resident.

 

After Irma: Searching for the living tree (part eight in a series)