Me and This Houseplant-Ms. Calathea

I’m going to tell you a story.

It may be a story that you’ve experienced yourself.

With your own picky houseplant that obviously has a mind of its own.

So I get this houseplant a few years ago. Gorgeous—right! Ms. Calathea pulled me in with her fabulous leaves, and I took her home.

 (Healthy Houseplants.com)

All things are good at first. I’m watering her—feeding her some good organic houseplant food, and then one day she is obviously starting to struggle some. Her leaf tips start to burn. And she needs watering constantly. She basically communicates that she wants a bigger pot, so I oblige.

Ms. Calathea responds by growing even more gorgeous than before! I was so happy that I’d listened and repotted her.

So one day when she’s starting to dry out again, I think, it’s time to repot you. I didn’t hear anything from her, but I figured I’d take things into my own hands (yes, pun intended) and go get a pot and repot her.

So I do.

Ms. Calathea is silent during the process, and I’m thinking at the back of my mind, she doesn’t like this new pot. I think she’s pouting. But what’s not to love with this new container? It’s bigger. It’s even more gorgeous. It’ll give her more root room, and I won’t have to water her constantly.

Boy, did she not like the new pot. She responded to the fact that she hadn’t told me to repot her by becoming riddled with brown leaf tips. And then she started to die.

Sigh.

I was understandably distraught.

Here I was trying to make things better for her, and it looked like I was going to kill Ms. Calathea with kindness.

 (HealthyHouseplants.com)

Then I realized. She wanted to go back into the prior pot.

So I repotted Ms. Calathea into that same pot. And you know what! She responded by immediately springing back to life—throwing on new leaves. Here she is above just two weeks after repotting—when prior the only thing left was that one bedraggled leaf.

I originally kept that leaf on there, because in order to regenerate and be saved, a plant needs at least one leaf to photosynthesize. So if you’re ever trying to revive an ailing plant, don’t cut off all the yucky leaves!

Now I’m keeping that leaf on to show you how bad she looked. And I think I’m keeping that leaf on to remind me to listen to her first. Because she’s obviously the bossy, cantankerous sort.

What is it about me and this houseplant? It looks like it’s about me and learning to listen to my houseplants even more than I do now.

I think Ms. Calathea likes the daily attention. That’s why she likes the smaller pot.

We’ll see what she wants next. I’m hearing a call for fertilizer…..So I better go before someone throws a fit….

Do you have a houseplant that has a mind of his or her own?