On May Day, my brother and I used to sneak around our neighborhood with our mom, secretly delivering flowers to unsuspecting neighbors. Here are some May Day flowers for you. In spring 2020, I wasn’t sure how to use Instagram. I mean, I technically knew how to use it. When I logged on, it was […]
plants
In June I spent a few days in the suburbs just east of Oceanside, California. (I actually just dedicated five minutes to figuring out whether it was actually Oceanside or Carlsbad, or Encintas, or Lake San Marcos, but we stayed in a nondescript chain hotel — a Hampton Inn? a Holiday Inn? a Marriott? — […]
Six or seven years ago, I bought a small, lopsided aloe plant from a holiday market for $7. I have neglected it for years, never changing its soil and rarely giving it enough light. It grew more and more crooked, and last year, its leaves (wait, do aloe have leaves? the fact that I don’t […]
Back when plants were just background noise to me, I assumed bonsai were just like that — tiny trees by nature, just a miniature version of the world’s bigger trees. There are miniature horses and pygmy goats, so why not little trees? Eventually, I learned I was totally wrong, as I am about many things, […]
Last spring, I wasn’t sure how to use Instagram. I mean, I technically knew how to use it. When I logged on, it was honestly keeping me going each day, watching everyone try to figure out what to do at home and seeing that they were just as uncertain as I was. People made sourdough […]
Usually, summer is the season for hiking, weddings, family vacations, and neglecting my houseplants and backyard. I’m used to coming home after 10 days away to parched calathea and a lawn full of dandelions. But this year, being home all the time means I am taking special care of my plant friends, because what does […]
Can plants behave? Can they weigh risk against reward? Do they have personalities? At least one study suggests they can and do—and that we’ve missed their complex behavior in part because they live life at such a different pace. Mimosa pudica, or “sensitive plant” is a frilly plant in the pea family with a wonderful […]
The murders began, as they usually do, with the coleus. I had walked out my front door on that May morning to sit on my porch swing. But I saw immediately that something was wrong, very wrong. Soil was spattered everywhere. A telltale sign of a massacre, as I knew from experience. Dark-chocolate dirt, flecked […]