Root Bound

Last year, I celebrated a decade in the service industry. It wasn’t exactly the job and career milestone I thought I’d be celebrating. And to say it was bittersweet would give too much credit to the industry. But maybe I’m jaded because I worked during the 2020 pandemic summer into winter in a college town. Getting yelled at over fake IDs or cutting people off from drinking more alcohol was frequent. I can’t exclude the people angry over mask rules either. At times they wore political attire and were recognizable from 50 yards away. Other times it was a seemingly kind dad with his kids who’d snap during my spiel at the host stand. Not everyone was unkind, many were happy we were open, but my sensitive, introverted soul carried emotional bruises home. It was during 2020, like most folks, when I made big, impulsive decisions about what would make me happy.

For the first half of the year, I was blissfully solitary. And like many folks, it was gardening and plant cultivation that saved my life in the revolutionary and life-changing way that Hollywood tends to portray romantic love. It was a real Cher in Moonstruck transformation. I went from having five houseplants to having over 50. It started with a Snake plant, Fasciated Haworthia, Fiddlehead fig, Spider Plant, and Wizard Rose Coleus. They lined the south-facing window of my second-floor apartment—absolutely idyllic lighting conditions for anyone familiar with cultivating plants. And so, I fell in love with my quirky apartment and a new hobby.

The most important part of the learning process was a pair of Fiskars scissors. As any new plant parent knows, pruning is a crucial part of growing healthy plants. Yellowing or browning leaves suck energy from the roots and are indicators of health issues. You could use your fingers to remove them, but the more efficient and kinder way is using scissors. While my plant collection grew exponentially, there were many hard lessons still to be learned. My satin pothos, a plant named for its shiny velvet spotted green leaves, didn’t need to be misted daily. It led to near root rot and brown mushy leaf stems that I removed delicately with my scissors.

Another beloved plant, the Philodendron Selloum, with large wavy green leaves, I both overwatered and neglected to fertilize. Philodendron Selloum is a favorite of mine because I’ve spotted them on episodes of Star Trek. The art department believes the Philodendron Selloum to belong among alien flora and fauna of strange new worlds. Who am I to disagree. There were small leaves that failed to form as large and magnificent as they can. And there were others with yellowing tips. Again it was a delicate process of pruning the dying leaves with scissors. Spending my day off watering, inspecting, and pruning each plant was the nurturing my spirit needed to thrive despite fear and uncertainty. Each plant came into my home in a plastic starter pot with holes on the bottom, this caused more than one instance of dirt and water on window sills, tables, and plant stands during watering. I would repot the plant in a larger pot to promote growth—a home for a growing houseplant.

It has become a sacred ritual. I spread a towel out over the living room floor and gather the necessary tools: scissors, coffee filters, the larger pot, and potting soil. Plunging my hands into the dirt is euphoric. I come from a long line of plant cultivators. The first time I repotted a plant, I felt it in my bones. I use scissors to trim the plant’s root ball I’ve dug up from the plastic starter pot. There’s no feeling in the world akin to delicately holding a plant and admiring the roots. For me, it’s a spiritual experience. It’s grounding and awe-inspiring. This root ball gathers water and nutrition from the soil and transforms it into new leaves. Have you ever watched a vining plant like satin pothos or heart leaf philodendron create vines? Or an orchid re-bloom after a brief resting period? It’s divine and magical.

Why do you think all onscreen witches have greenhouses or herb gardens? Growing your vegetables and fruit trees would give even the most humble of us delusions of grandeur. The roots don’t need much trimming; it’s helpful to remove the dirt with your fingers and loosen up the roots. That way, they have the freedom to spread out in the new pot. Often I’ll choose a standard terra cotta pot, but other times I’ll opt for a Kiln fired colorful pot. The size, of course, varies depending on the plant. All of them have drainage holes and a lip on the bottom for collecting water. For nearly all of my houseplants, I used standard potting soil. For cacti, succulents, and Orchids, there’s a particular soil as wildly unique as those plants can be. And my big, beautiful Chinese Evergreen desired half orchid potting soil and half standard. I place a coffee filter on the bottom of the new pot to help with water filtration, allowing dirt to stay in the pot. I’ll fill it partially with soil until I can safely place the plant, thereby allowing the root ball plenty of space to grow.

Roots are strong. I tried to take a large Monstera I’ve affectionately named Miss Misfit Monstera out of the pot to install a moss pole. The roots were attached to the sides of the container in a way I couldn’t shake without damaging the plant. I gave up. Monsteras enjoy being root-bound, and moss poles are not a total necessity. Their purpose is aesthetic. You see Monsteras grow these long aerial roots above the soil. They grow naturally up the sides of trees in Central America. These long cord-like aerial roots are strong and attach to the tree’s surface. Since my moss pole didn’t work out, my Monstera grows wild large aerial roots. She’s wild and untamed.

There’s a corny metaphor for letting yourself be wild and free in there somewhere. But I’m starting to go off on tangential love letters to the plants I’ve kept living for a year now. A milestone I celebrated as if it was a romantic anniversary. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Wherein my air is clean, and my spirit has moments of divine respite from a grueling workweek. There’s nothing like the dirt on your hands, and it may even help our immune systems. I believe that wholeheartedly. Besides repotting, and general maintenance, there are even more magical possibilities. And if that sounds hyperbolic, spend a minute sitting in my plant nook and tell me the air doesn’t feel crisp, quiet, and serene. When I sit in my plant nook, it’s as if the Earth stops spinning.

I have a Wizard Rose Coleus that’s a fast-growing plant with dark pink and green leaves. Coleus plants are lovely and vary in color. But by far, the best part of collecting coleus is how easy they propagate. Here again, scissors are my tool of choice. Once the coleus gets too leggy, meaning the green stems are too long to sustain the vibrant colors, I will cut them into pieces. I make sure to cut under leaf nodes which are those little bumps on the stems representing humble beginnings to vines, new leaves, or even aerial roots. All of the cuttings thrive placed in a mason jar filled to the top with filtered water. Again, it’s important to use scissors for a clean cut. Over the next few weeks, in the sunlight, each coleus cutting will begin to grow thin, wispy roots. Eventually, the whole jar fills with roots. It’s a wonder to behold. Does that not change your mind over my usage of the word magic? So many houseplants propagate easily. I’ve gifted many dear friends a wizard rose coleus.

My friend’s coleus will grow pending they follow my obsessively written notecard of instructions. Water up to three times a week, they prefer east-facing windows, etc., etc. And then they too can grow coleus babies to gift to others. Eventually, I hope that everyone in this small town in upstate New York will have one. If cared for and propagated, they’ll outlive us all. There’s no better gift for a friend than a baby plant. If a friend is over and admires a plant, perhaps I’ll give them a cutting in water. It’s a way I can spread love and healing. For me, I needed a hobby that would ground me and calm my weary spirit.

My job got increasingly demanding and stressful. There were several close calls with Covid as the winter arrived. The Back of House, a term for the essential and universally mistreated kitchen staff, were discontent and underpaid. Tensions mounted. College students came to the Brewery to be young, wild, and free as you’d expect any 21 year old to react to being controlled by pandemic forces of nature. And, Amidst the chaos, I’d be sitting at the host stand or standing by the POS taking orders from 12 to 9 pm with a rushed half-hour for lunch. My body would be still, but there would be chaos erupting to my left, right, front, and back for a whole day.

After a long shift, I’d be too tired to do anything but watch TV. I couldn’t read, write, paint or perform any creative tasks. My body was tired, yes, but my mind was awake. Stuck in high-speed mode and stuck, anxious that I forgot something. Relaxing was, therefore, an unachievable and challenging task. Ever have restaurant dreams? Restaurant dreams that are vivid and related to failing to get a guest their order? Yes, I have to call them guests at that particular workplace. But I doubt a guest in my home would throw hot soup at me unless I said something somewhat scandalous. Yes, a customer (I’ll die before I call them guests) threw hot soup at my coworker. Another day, my coworker had to shovel human poop that was blocking the entrance to the Brewery. I guess it might’ve been an emergency. However, we had an abundance of bathrooms, and it was after a day of endless angry customers’.

If I sound whiny and like I’m excessively complaining, don’t worry, I noticed too. As I said, many folks realized their workplaces were toxic tar pits keeping them trapped in exchange for financial security. Am I happy? It’s a loaded question that would have made me burst into tears depending on the time of my life. But, in 2021, after the reflective period that winter in upstate New York will force on you, I realized that I couldn’t go back. The money wasn’t worth it. There had long been tensions between staff, owners, and management involving the myriad of ways that the profits over people mindset breeds a general sense of malaise. Unsurprising in our current political and social climate. And it wasn’t as if they were struggling financially. Even during the pandemic, the Brewery was a million-dollar business because there’s wide-open acreage for college kids to sneak beer to their underage friends. And then I was replaced by a college student with less of a curmudgeonly service industry veteran demeanor regardless of my decision. It was never clearer how replaceable I was and how little my five years working there had meant.

Truthfully many of my friends weren’t invited back or elected not to go back. Pandemic stress and food service stress had created an unavoidable vortex. I agonized over the transition. It was as if I emerged from a tar pit, nails bloody, muscles fatigued, having crawled my way out. I cried and cried. But then I laughed and danced. It was messy and indescribable. Freedom is often that way. It’s a bundle of energy in your chest as if your lungs are tight and restricted. But you have this manic energy and mentality that you’re invincible. A real mind fuck. I’d encourage anyone dismissing me as dramatic to work a double during any college Graduation weekend.

Anyone wondering what it felt like to take that leap of faith, please listen to the 1972 Yes Album Close to the Edge. That album is freedom personified. That weekend I painted for the first time in months through tears and fear. Weeks later, a friend sent me a job posting for a garden center and landscaping company. They were looking for garden center staff. That week the orchid on my kitchen table started re-blooming deep magenta flowers, and I couldn’t help but attribute symbolic meaning to the whole transformation. I channeled everything I had into that job application and got an interview that night. By the next week, I was working again. But this time was radically different. I was outside watering plants. I dug up a lilac bush that needed to have burlap stapled around the root ball before it goes to sale. With shovel in hand, I crouched under the lilac bush, inhaling its aroma with the help of a coworker. My coworkers are kind, sensitive plant people. Those are my kind of people. The customers are all plant people. Gardeners. They only wonder if we have a particular shrub or rose variety.

We even sell Fiskars brand gardening supplies. Now instead of house scissors, I have gardening scissors attached to my utility belt. I’ll spend hours pruning and polishing the leaves of the plants in the houseplant greenhouse. I’m delighted to chat with customers about the lavender plant they’ve snagged. A few times a week, we have to unload a sixteen-wheeler full of plants. In the short time since I started working there, it’s the best job I’ve ever had. Every day I’m learning about my passions. After all, nearly all of my creativity relates to plant cultivation. Did you know that it’s best to buy one male and one female tree if you’re purchasing Holly Trees? The female trees have berries, and the male trees help the process. Or that yellowing Tomato plants require fertilizer? My entire body is sore, but the sun is shining. Or the rain washes the mud from my limbs. I could have a whole love affair with the soil. And, like a dream come true, every day, my hands are in the dirt.

Yes, I traded one physically exhausting job for another. But here’s the crucial difference, if it wasn’t already glaringly apparent. After a day at the ever-popular Brewery, I’d be near tears because it felt meaningless. As if my tiredness was a result of something as inconsequential as beer and fries. Not that those things aren’t delicious. But is it worth being yelled at and running around for nearly 12 hours? I don’t personally think so. After a day at the Garden Center, I am exhausted, but the happy exhausted? I didn’t know that existed, but it is blissful. The kind of tired when you feel as though you’ve accomplished something. And it’s a sure thing that I have. I get paid to water plants. If you told me that this would be my job a year ago, I would’ve broken down into tears. Instead, I get paid to reorganize the greenhouse and inhale the growing plants’ aroma. I look out, and the vast expanse of the finger lakes skyline stares back at me. My gloves reek of Garden Tone fertilizer. My manager apologizes that it has a potent smell ever the considerate, kind people they are.

No one manager is undermining and disrespecting the other or staff; I take a deep breath and smile. It feels ancestral. It’s as if my great Gamma is smiling at me in the garden I’d run around in as a child. Or I’m ten years old, again in my grandmother’s garden as she points out the Bluebirds. I’ve made a mental note to tell her of all the critters I’ve run into at work: a crow, a baby bunny, a chipmunk, and a frog that I had to pick up from out of the way of my cart. And I can’t forget sitting by my mother’s hydrangea garden. Or under her wisteria trellis and thinking life would always be as blissful as the days spent running around outside with my younger brother.

One day I have to bare-root trees, which is essentially my sacred ritual of repotting. I’ll trim the root ball with my newly upgraded Fiskars scissors for gardening and place the tiny tree in a plastic starter pot. I had no idea trees could be sold in containers. We sell them both in containers or balled in burlap. It almost feels as though we are defying god. I’ll sit and take my lunch in the birch bed section on the makeshift bench surrounded by white birch growing in containers. When I look up at the trees, at their beauty, it’s freedom. I hope I never lose this feeling of gratitude and awe. And that I never forget that my liberation began with five houseplants and a pair of scissors.