I speak for the plants

I wasn’t new when it came to the world of houseplants but my green thumb was extremely weak. I’d look at a succulent and it would die - a SUCCULENT! How does that even happen? Something that thrives on neglect managed to die on someone who thrives on neglecting things; it didn’t make sense. A bad case of depression hit somewhere around the same time as the pandemic hit; it’s funny how 2020 managed to pull that off for me. I guess I should be somewhat thankful it did because it opened up my mind to the idea of getting more houseplants; there was a bunch of trial and error along the way. I am not here to talk about lost plant pals though; I’m here to talk about Merlin.

Monstera Deliciosa is the scientific name and they native to the rainforests of Central America. I bought this tiny four-inch plant at a humid greenhouse in Ontario, Canada. I was already pessimistic over how this was going to turn out but I brought him home, repotted him, and waited a few days before I watered him so he could get acclimated to his new home. I looked up everything I could to make sure he was going to be content and not join plants of the past, I downloaded an app that would remind me to water and fertilize, I turned into a helicopter parent for a plant and could feel the spirits of past plants looming over me as I put so much effort into one plant.

It turns out that he loved me because after a month or so of intensive plant parenthood, he produced a new leaf and I squealed about it for a week straight. As the pandemic raged on, so did Merlin. He got so big that I had to re-pot him twice a year, he kept trying to crawl out of his pot and would hang over the sides. So I finally decided it was time for him to graduate into a massive terracotta flower pot with a pole and that in itself was a job. He didn’t make it any easier. It’s almost like he knew what he was doing.

He is now producing leaves that are bigger than my hand with multiple fenestrations (those are what the splits in the leaves are called), I am not sure what clicked in my brain in 2020 but it was enough to get me through everything it threw at me when it seemed like it was never going to get better my phone would go off and I would need to do something for Merlin again. Merlin turned my green thumb into a radioactive glowing green hand because soon enough I had collected plants I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever be able to own, like a Croton and a Mican Philodendron and even a black velvet Alocasia. I was fine staying in my small rainforest misting plants daily, moving them around, and repotting. I found that both my depression and anxiety have lessened since I started filling my home with greenery and I wish that I had tried harder in my earlier years to keep them alive.

2020 was a lot of things to a lot of people, it was a year of mourning and anger, it was filled with confusion and questions but over time it became crystal clear to me that you can only control so much. So I woke up every morning and started by misting Merlin and moved on to the next plant trying to focus on what was happing in my little slice of green paradise.