plant hoard

Order of Plant Hoarder

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In the past I may have mentioned here on the blog that I had to deal with hoarding with a few family members, and that I struggled with it a bit when I was very ill. My maternal grandmother was an extreme hoarder and she had mental health issues which included anxiety and depression. At the end of her life, while in a community living situation, she hoarded empty boxes. To block herself off from the world, she made a wall of them, but it was nothing like the home my mother and her late-brother had to empty out. Grandma really hoarded everything, and there sadly was a lot of garbage and other things that never needed to be there.

When I brought all of this home last week for the garden, my initial reaction was simply to cringe and think, “This is too much.” I’ve had time to think about this though and the feelings are so much more complicated.

Like many people who’ve had hoarding in their lives, I too tend to have decision-making problems. I don’t when it comes to being professional and being on time, or setting goals to achieve things. It has more to do with projects, and I’m realizing that it has something to do with not being able to learn how to do much of anything outside of my room as a kid in addition to more recent things.

I lived in a controlled environment, and while my brothers were able to escape the nest, I was sequestered. Since the kitchen was constantly free, I developed cooking skills, but my life up until I was 18 lacked almost all autonomy.

Entering adulthood, it was more of the same. Illness created more sequestration and I lacked autonomy all over again. While I continue to express the complicated and deep sadness I feel at having had so few choices, I continue to work through the mess of hoarded emotional baggage, and for me, that’s connected to the seemingly never-ending pile of plants too. They kept me busy, I’ve enjoyed that, and I find that I’m growing beyond it now.

I see the Order of Plant Hoarder around me, I know the gardens, and as someone who took well to social work when I did it, I feel for others who deal with this same problem but for different reasons. I’m thinking a lot now about many things, and it’s an anchoring activity for me, one that scares the hell out of me, while simultaneously opening me up more to the world.

Looking at nursery work, the amount of stuff, can sometimes be overwhelming, triggering, but I’m learning to take heart in the joy of keeping a complete picture whole, beautiful, and coming home to enjoy my surroundings, rather than to have that heavy feeling of it pulling me down. Hoarding allows objects to control you, and when they’re plants, it somehow feels like you’re caring about them, but it’s an act of conservation which is more a manifestation of the emotions you’re avoiding. It is a clear act of denial.

There are two more plant areas of the house to clear out, but today I tackle the back garden where all strays have ended up. With our recent heat spells, I’ve needed to water, and with my being gone a lot, this was the answer. Thankfully, the space is small.

And there is a compost bin, and I have help coming in the form of a friend opening up more planting space. I feel badly that some of these plants have been fried, but I’ve done my best, and within the next two weeks, this will all be planted or else gone.

There is no real way to prevent hoarding and obsessive collecting. I don’t even have the full-blown disorder, but I think it’s living around others who did, that has caused me to slip into habits I don’t like. My hoarding was learned. I learned poor emotional skills, and lacked the full support I needed to know how to cope well.

Admitting all of this to myself, and regularly staying on track, has created such an incredible kind of calm. I know the medication has helped me too, and not having swelling pain. I don’t miss the constant alarms going off in my body that something was seriously wrong. I hoarded while ill in order to concentrate on something else, as avoidance. I was in survival mode and I hated it so much.

In this calm now, I want to rest. I want to relax. And the best part is knowing with full confidence—I will.

Houseplant Count #6-7

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My interest in writing about houseplants diminished quite a bit after my initial post. It is daunting to consider how long it will take me to write through all of the ones that I own and care for now. Part of me is embarrassed by the amount of time required to care for this many tender plants. Another part of myself hates working so much with plants only to return home to play with more. All of this has led me to consider what kind of balance I need, and I’m working on it.

First and foremost I’m a plant geek with a strong sense of curiosity about the life of my plants. My houseplants are not for show necessarily, or even for decorating my home. Even if I have a specimen plant, you won’t find me calling it that. Plants feed my curiosity, and give me pleasure. I study and learn from them. Many people can identify with me, but is it a compulsion, an unhealthy obsession? Are many of us currently addicted to plants? I don’t know about others, but I do know that in part, my many plants stem from my not having been able to have children. Many have speculated that a need to nurture something is why indoor plants are so popular right now, but I’m not thoroughly convinced. I believe that for each of us, we all have our own complicated reasons, and for many, those reasons are personal.

Gardeners have buried their sadness in the ground for ages, and while my life has grown exponentially more wonderful in the last decade, I still tend to harbor a melancholy that’s best left tilled silently with my sore fingers into my plants here at home. My only compulsion is this act of burying and putting things to rest. I find closure and growth again and again. If I’m addicted to anything, it’s to the regular nature, the steady rhythm, the beating drum of the growth cycle. I’m a propagator, a horticulturist, and I find comfort in the assuredness of the lifecycle, the death and rebirth through the seasons. Houseplants for me are the wildcard, my steady friends, the plants that are not living naturally their best lives and they NEED me. They need my extra input, my help, in order to survive.

Plant hoarding exists and during my adult life I know that I have been a hoarder. My maternal grandmother was a serious hoarder, and my mother has issues with it as well. I was always the organized one tossing and sorting, sorting and tossing. When I became very ill, I started to hoard but didn’t realize it for many years. I saved far too many things for projects I would “get to” but was physically unable to do any of them. Only recently am I finally tackling the basement. The basement and the Seed Studio have always been the worst areas. Losing family, I over-inherited a lot of family objects. During my first marriage, I hoarded because I was in a marriage that was one-sided. I was told that I was loved for nearly a decade, but I knew in my heart it wasn’t true, and then he walked out one day and essentially told me he had finally realized he’d never loved me. I was crazily angry and raging. I wasted those years, knowingly living a lie, and then I looked at the hoarding around me. It has been a slow process to reverse that damage.

So many things had been accumulated by my anxiety because I was in a bad relationship. I’m not a psychologist, but from what I understand, I was surrounding myself, protecting myself, blocking myself off from the reality I did not want to face. It was emotionally too painful. Once he was gone though, it all stopped, and the clouds lifted. I had surrounded myself with a jungle of plants though, and it was my green armor, a shield, my scout badge, a status symbol.

Indoor plants now live in the spaces where I hoarded and stashed so many piles of things. It is taking time to get groups of plants setup in pretty vignettes so that’s why I only have two to talk about this week. My aim for months now has been to brighten these emotionally raw spaces with less stuff. I plan to fill more space in my home with happy and healthy well-grown plants from my collection. Honestly, I can’t imagine a better project to complete during a pandemic that has caused all of us to feel so isolated. I am aiming to connect in the only way that I can.

And if you’ve reached this point and are confused and befuddled by my TMI than remember that I’m a writer who it fond of breaking the rules, and I’m a gardener who is more than aware that these plants exist here, in my home, because of a strange human need to care for and collect them. That human need to possess and collect is part of their existence, and there is no reason why I shouldn’t describe (in detail) that relationship and arrangement between the plants and I. Plants are a commodity and are twisted into so many things thanks to our need to do so. Let’s just be very open about that.

While I may be the current leader of a local chapter affiliated with the Gesneriad Society that does not mean that I’m an expert grower of all gesneriads. (I don’t even know all of them.) While I can grow many well now, it has taken time. I still have A LOT to learn though and I enjoy the act of this plant practice. Gesneriads are tricky to grow, but if you’re in a chapter with others, they’re very easy to collect. We share plants, our growing experiences, and our losses. I have long joked that I’m terrible with Streptocarpus, and I have been, but I vowed to master them next and so far I’m doing better.

Streptocarpus ‘Bethan’

Houseplant #6: Streptocarpus ‘Bethan’

Once again I’m uncertain as to where my Streptocarpus ‘Bethan’ came from but I think it was a gift from my friend Evan aka the Practical Plant Geek. I believe it was given to me during a plant purge and that I was told something about the ease of its care. Well, this plant was tended to, potted up, and then this happened. I think it is an easy-to-grow Strep and I would recommend it to beginners. Like all good Streps, the blooms lasted for a very long time.

Bred by Dibleys Nurseries in England, this hybrid was introduced in 1995. Part of the joy of belonging to a plant group like the Mt Hood Gesneriad Society is learning about hybridizing. While I have not attempted to hybridize much of anything with purposeful crosses, I hope to eventually. In the meantime, I really just want to learn more about the parentage of plants while giving praise to breeders and voice to the process by which these captivating plants are created.

Streptocarpus ‘Iced Amethyst Showoff’

Houseplant #7: Streptocarpus ‘Iced Amethyst Showoff’

This plant was acquired through the donation of a collection of Streptocarpus from a collector who could no longer keep them. A member from our group took on the donation and cared for them, and before she sold her home and greenhouse she passed them along to us to sell at one of our plant sale fundraisers for the club.

I had grown Streptocarpus ‘Iced Pink Flamingo’ twice and both times the plants had failed to thrive for me. I had given up on the variegated plants but then this one crossed my path so I tried again. I’m so glad I did. This plant is growing in my basement, under lights, and it has a wick watering setup.

I’d avoided setting up a system due to a lack of energy, time and commitment, but it was worth the time. (Yes, I save time and energy now.) Some folks grow their plants over individual reservoirs of water but I’m using a humidity tray with grids so that I can water all of the plants at once. I’m very happy with the results and will include more on what I’m growing using this method in future posts.

Bred by D.Martens/S. Morgan, this plant was introduced in 2002. It’s parents are S. ‘Canterbury Surprise’ x S. ‘Winter Dreams’.