I haven’t always loved growing plants, and I definitely haven’t always been good at it. In fact, there was a time when I could barely keep a spider plant alive and I used to joke that bringing it to the brink of death and back was merely a tool to feed my hero complex. Haha. True story. But, to be fair, I was just out of college and my main focus was on keeping myself and a cat alive, and I needed to spend a fair amount of attention on both. The needs of a spider plant were running a distant third and it never occurred to me to even add one to my portfolio.

But like anyone who’s ever gone on a plant journey, somehow, somewhere, somebody gives you a spider plant or some other innocuous houseplant to celebrate your new place or your new baby or, well, your adulthood, and there you are with a living thing that requires your care in order to survive. It doesn’t always go that great, even if you think you are up for the challenge, and being up for the challenge is more than half of the battle no matter what kind of flora is sitting in front of you.

As a complete aside, I think that anyone who wants to have a baby (or even a cat) should first be able to keep some houseplants alive and thriving for a year as a trial run. It doesn’t have to be a fancy effort-maybe a spider plant, a ficus, a couple of pothos and a philodendron, which I think are the universal lowest bar for houseplants, yes? But if they are all dead, or mostly dead, in 12 months despite your best efforts, eh, maybe give yourself some time on that “caring for living things” thing.

So, back to my spider plant. It was not a pretty effort, and then I got married to a man whose mother came from a couple of generations of florists, herself included. She was not impressed with my anemic spider plant, which came with me and my cat to our new home. With a world of unspoken florist pressure heaped upon it, I adopted in that marriage a huge philodendron that had been gifted to my husband and his first wife. I immediately started trying to kill that too. Passive-aggressive, I guess.

But then there were other plants that came-a Benjamin tree as a housewarming gift, an azalea for our first baby, a Christmas cactus for something or another-and pretty soon I became intrigued with the colors and textures and freshness that these living things could provide inside my house. I started cruising garden centers and buying more, having almost no understanding of which plants needed what, and choosing plants primarily because I liked the way they looked. I killed a whole bunch of them, but I learned a lot along the way.

That learning continues, and the small victories are celebrated with unreasonable glee. To wit: My mother, an incredible green thumb, gave me cuttings of a jade plant that came from my great-grandmother’s garden in California, plus she gave me an aloe vera “baby” cut from her massive plantings in a sunny window of Zone 3A. For about three years, I very nearly killed them both. I mean, it was embarrassing to see the burgeoning cuttings and plants of my mom and siblings contrasted by my sickly growings here. I just didn’t get the vibe of the plants, and whatever I was doing just wasn’t quite right.

Over a number of years, I’ve become much more of a “plant whisperer” who can stand with a plant and understand what is amiss. It isn’t a natural thing – it is something learned through trial, error, and outside wisdom, but I also think it is an empathetic will that comes from trying to feel our plants as living things. I’m not sure I can call it empathy, but I know when a plant is screaming, “Please water me, stupid!” and all of my houseplants are looking better as a result. I also availed myself of the deep well of knowledge in the Northern Gardener website portal, where experts have poured everything they know into print for you and I. My plants thank these people for their wisdom.

It has definitely been a journey, but  I’ve learned that, if we can give them what they need, houseplants will return it to us tenfold in beauty. That spider plant is an insane beast that has provided “babies” for everyone I know. The Benjamin tree is healthy and strong. The Christmas cactus, crotons, pothos, scheffleras, aglaonema, arrowhead vine, azaleas-dead. All dead. But the philodendron? Magnificently beautiful in the largest pot I can manage, and that feels like a win.

Cynthya Porter is the editor of Northern Gardener® magazine. A professional writer, photographer and editor for 20+ years, she’s freelanced for USA Today, Huff Post, AAA Living, Minnesota Monthly, Midwest Living and more.

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