Parting is such sweet sorrow...even when you're a plant killer
by Beth Teitell

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

What is it about a plant in its death throes that can haunt a person? Can make her feel so bad she can't even look out at her deck, where the plant is going about its grim business, shedding leaves, shriveling, growing - no, it can't be - cobwebs?

I'm not sure when, but at some point, my ivy and I passed the point of no return. In a court of law I'd tell the jury that it couldn't be my fault, as the other plants under my care were doing fine. ``Her impatiens are thriving,'' my attorney would thunder in closing arguments. ``Why would she single out the ivy, so lush when she bought it, so full of life, and mark it for death?''

Why indeed?

As anyone who has killed a plant knows - yes, I'll use that word, part of my recovery is to take responsibility - it's not that I wanted it to die. What happens between a person and an ivy, or a ficus, or a croton is more subtle than that.

I had been nervous when I bought the plants, and maybe the ivy sensed that. I'm not sure. But you know how these stories go. At first, everything's fine. The plant is growing, and you, encouraged, water it on schedule. Maybe even think about throwing some fertilizer its way, or repotting it in a better soil.

``Look how full it's getting,'' I boasted in the early days. Now I realize that it wasn't me - the ivy was coasting on the care it had gotten in the garden store.

Soon I began to notice, although I pretended not to, that some of the leaves had started to turn brown or, worse, drop. To see how the plant was doing - or wasn't, as the case may be - all one had to do was to look at the floor beneath it. But I was in denial. ``It's just shedding a few bad apples,'' I told myself. ``It's part of the process.''

But I knew what was going on, and although I continued to water it, it wasn't often enough. Like a ``thank you'' note I had put off writing, the guilt associated with the plant caused me to avoid it - the very behavior that was killing it in the first place. Soon, the ivy started to loom large in my mind. I'd be out, enjoying myself, when I'd spot a plant hanging from a porch or sitting on a planter in front of a store, looking all green and full of life. Anxiety would twist my gut.

``Just throw it away and be done with it,'' a friend said after I yelled ``Don't go out there!!!'' when she started for the deck.

Throw it away. How I would have loved to. It was mid-July, and the summer wasn't too old to start over. With a new ivy, one that didn't know my history, I could have been anyone - even someone with a green thumb.

But throwing away a living plant - or one that was living when you took custody - is not a simple matter. It's like tossing a holiday card with a photograph of your friend's two cute children, but worse. Card disposal is a private matter. No one ever comes over and demands to see your old cards, but a plant, people will ask about. ``Didn't you used to have a ficus here?'' they'll inquire ``innocently.'' Or, ``What happened to that great flowering plant? The one with the droopy pink flowers?''

But last week, my guilt over the mess the ivy was making on the deck finally outweighed my feelings about the plant's premature death. So I took the big step. I reached up, unhooked it from its hanger, pausing only briefly to remember how giddy I'd felt when I first hung it up there, and walked downstairs to the trash.

``I'm sorry,'' I said as I put it face first into the trash can. It said nothing, but it got its revenge, alright. On the way back upstairs to my apartment I noticed it had left a trail of leaves, leading straight from the deck to the garbage.

I sat down and waited for the cops to come.