Hard knocks from houseplants

And a book paying homage to one of history's greatest literary families.

Dear Reader,

There’s something so joyous about sharing a home with houseplants. A little bit of greenery can brighten up the dankest, darkest place (not speaking from experience here, or anything).

Yet houseplant cultivation is indeed a journey; one that is sometimes filled with death (of the plants and hopefully fungus gnats) and despair.

I’ve been caring for leafy companions for around a decade now, and consider myself to have a developed a fairly green thumb over this time. This knowledge has certainly been gained from a lot of trial and error.

My plant body count is admittedly fairly high, but there are some that I’ve been living with for years now, who seem somewhat encouraged to stay alive. Or even flourish, in some cases.

So, hard knocks from houseplants. Here are some life lessons my greenest friends have taught me.

I rarely water my Stephania erecta, as I’m terrified of killing it. It’s an arrangement that seems to work out for the best.

Better to underwater than overwater

I reckon this is the number one killer of houseplants. I know I’ve definitely been way too generous with the watering can in the past, to the detriment of some of my favourite plants.

I’ve found a water meter to be a valuable investment, especially when you’ve acquired a new plant or recently repotted an old friend. In time, you’ll get into the swing of things with your plants, understanding just how often they need a little sip.

Your house plants will tell you what they need

Maybe we forget this, because they don’t move or clamour for attention in the same manner as say, a dog. Or my very needy dog, at least.

But plants are very much alive and attuned to their own needs. They will tell you what they want, you just have to be open to seeing or hearing it.

(If you believe in animism, you may even consider that each plant has its own spiritual essence and/or soul, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish that may be a bit too deep for this newsletter).

There is such a thing as too many plants

I mean, I didn’t believe this to be true, either. Then I moved into a dank, dark house with no built in shelves. Suddenly space is at a premium.

My partner even built me a ‘plantcase’ (like a bookcase, but with plants, geddit?) for more storage solutions except then… it got overrun by books, too. Oops.

Nothing is impossible to kill, including cacti

They seem robust, but if you’re really determined, you too can cause them to perish. Who knew it.

Plants like a routine (and you may too)

Set up a routine for your plants and they’ll love you for it. Say you have a big watering day every Tuesday in summer, second Tuesday in winter. Or perhaps you decide to fertilise the first day of every month. Make a ritual out of it, I say.

My Thai Constellation Monstera. I mean, it’s not dead… yet. Just missing some limbs.

Don’t drop stacks of money on plants until you feel ready

One game that I never want to play, is figuring out how much money I’ve wasted on plants that have withered up and died. Especially orchids. I went through a real orchid phase in 2020-21 and managed to kill off every single one I brought home (or rather as a mark of the times, ordered to my door). Was it me, or was it my dark and cold house? I don’t know. Regardless, the loss of my jewel orchids (yes, plural) was particularly heartbreaking.

I currently live with three slightly exxy houseplants. Two have been around for awhile and we’re pretty well acquainted. Things seem to be going fine. No one appears to be in grave danger.

The newest addition is one I’ve lusted after for many many years. A Thai Constellation Monstera. I bought it on sale, but the price was still upsetting.

I honestly thought I was ready for this plant. I’ve been at this for years, after all.

I placed it in the front room, where its leaves immediately began to burn in the afternoon sun. Super. I moved it into my bedroom, which has the most gentle and most consistent light in the house year round. It stabilised, but then a new leaf got smooshed while growing and is now kind of deformed.

Sometimes you just can’t win.

It’s hard to feel completely lonely when you’re surrounded by plants

Even one plant can make a difference. When I lived alone, I had an apartment full of plants (it was a very small apartment, so this was easy to achieve) and it made the place feel so cosy. During the we-must-never-speak-of them years of 2020-21 I went a little over the edge in buying up new green companions, just to have something living to talk to. They made a difference, for sure.

Plants give us back so much. Oxygen and air purification for one thing. We eat them, obviously. Some have medicinal properties. And they’re just great company. Even simply looking at them lightens the soul.

No surprise here, but books can be incredibly helpful on any plant journey. Years ago, I purchased How Not to Kill Your Houseplant, which taught me a heck-ton. I no longer consider myself horticulturally challenged as a result!

Love to hear about your plant journey/obsession in the comments. 🪴

What’s Booking: Walking the Invisible by Michael Stewart

Most of the books I read, I borrow from the library. This is largely because if I bought every book I wanted to read, I’d easily go broke.

I often fantasise about just walking into the library and choosing a book off the shelf, but unfortunately, I’m way too married to the online holds system.

This fantasy was half fed into when I stumbled upon Michael Stewart’s Walking the Invisible in the online catalogue. Kind of like a virtual browsing of the shelves, if you will.

Anyway. This gem of a book I’d never heard of, ended up being a delightful read. It largely consists of two of my favourite genres – walking memoirs and biographies about literary behemoths, in this case the entire family of Brontës.

Stewart became obsessed with the Brontës after hearing Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights as a child. He went on to read each and everyone one of the Brontë’s books (even Patrick Brontë’s, it seems), becoming enthralled by them and the landscape that inspired their fantastic literary feats.

He’s been instrumental in creating four walks around this part of England – one for each sister, and one for the family as a whole. The Charlotte Brontë walk is a 4-mile meander around Thornton, birthplace of the sisters and their brother Branwell. The Anne Brontë walk is a 7-mile stroll in the valleys north of Haworth, where they wrote their classics. Emily’s walk is not for the fainthearted – a romp through the wild moors that inspired Wuthering Heights.

The final walk takes in the four Brontë stones; a group of stones placed in the landscape between Thornton and the parsonage in Haworth. Three stones are dedicated to the sisters, having been inscribed with poems written by Kate Bush, former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, author Jeanette Winterson and former Scottish Makar Jackie Kay.

In this book, he retraces these walks, alongside other significant treks from the Brontë’s works. There’s one particular nail biting chapter, where he walks from the presumed location of Wuthering Heights to Liverpool, wild camping along the way with his dog Wolfie. It’s the same walk Mr. Earnshaw would have taken, when returning with Heathcliff.

I’ve been to Yorkshire a couple of times and have been lucky enough to visit the the moors – in fact, I first read Wuthering Heights on a winter trip to Haworth. It’s a wild and windy place and I could see how it had, in turn, inspired what really is quite a delightfully deranged story.

If you too love travel memoirs, history books, literary figures or even just slow meanders through wild countryside, I highly recommend seeking out a copy of Walking the Invisible.

That’s it for this week. Got a new series starting next week, sharing some hearty recipes that hero one of the world’s best vegetables.

‘Til then, stay well and well-fed.

-Celine

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