This morning, I got the idea for this post when I was transplanting houseplants.

My father had won a table centerpiece with a poinsettia in the middle and several varieties of houseplants around it. My parents don’t have houseplants except for a lemon tree my mother leaves out on the porch in the warmer months, but it has a place of prominence in her front room the rest of the year. So, I knew the centerpiece of plants would go into the garbage if I didn’t rescue it.

I didn’t take a photo of it because it looked rather sad and seemed like it was on its way out. Since my daughter is a plant mama and wizard at keeping them alive and thriving, she gave me some tips on how to transplant them into containers. I would have gotten big pots, thinking they would need the room to grow, but she said it’s the opposite; plants like their roots compact in pots no more than an inch bigger than the rootball.

We do have several happy houseplants growing inside our home. I do my best to care for them, and with the help of my daughter’s plant care knowledge, they seem to be growing well.

So, what did I learn from the plants?

Pruning changes energy. 

There was a spider plant that had browned leaves. I began cutting the brown parts off and wound up cutting it down to the dirt, leaving a stub left.

I thought, oh no, I think I killed it, but then I remembered how I cut down the plants in the yard, and the following year, they grew thicker and healthier. When I pulled the houseplants apart from one another, their roots were intermingled, and I had to give them a good yank to separate them. The roots were lanky and all different lengths, so I gave them a haircut, too. I thought the plants would need the energy to make the roots stronger to grow new foliage.

This is what I hope the spider plant will look like.

By pruning the plant of its off-colored and sickened parts and grooming the roots, I gave it a better chance to live.

If we prune our “off-colored and sickened” parts, we, too, have a chance to get our roots stronger and healthier. What I mean by the “off-colored and sickened” parts is our negative mindset, people and situations that cause us angst, or our habits that do not serve us well. We “groom our roots” by making peace with our past. We can’t change it, so we have to make peace with it.

Let’s give up the stronghold we have on our upbringing, constantly blaming and wondering why we’re still stuck. This has been quite difficult for me, too, but I’ve been working at it, and it’s getting easier. Once we look at our roots objectively and don’t allow them to affect us anymore, that’s when we know we’ve made peace with them.

Plants only know how to grow. 

I know plants don’t have a brain like us, but I believe they use energy like us. They use their energy to grow. Often, I used my energy to re-live the past, worry in the present, and dream of a future I didn’t really believe in (otherwise, I’d have achieved my goals.) Now, I’m making a more considerable effort to focus my energy on the here and now and what I can do differently to alter the course of my life to grow and blossom.  It’s a fun proposition to think about, knowing all we have to do is shift our energy to grow healthier and happier.

Plants are affected by music and positive voices.

Just as a plant likes to be spoken to with kind words and a happy tone, people like that, too. I don’t know about you, but I much prefer to interact with people who are jolly over being jealous or people who are positive over being pessimistic. And so do plants.

Plants seem to like relaxing instrumental music. When I’m listening to smooth jazz, I’m calmer and in a better mood. If I put on hard rock, I get tense. So do plants.

Think about what kind of human interaction makes you feel good, and chances are that’s what makes plants feel good, too.

So, let’s learn from plants. Prune the dead stuff off your life, clean up the roots to make them healthier, and talk kinder to yourself. Easy peasy!

Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you are having a marvelous day, week, and start of the 2024 year! Keep positive, keep truckin’, and keep smiling!

To plants,

Francesca