Loading…

I finally understood why my grandmother talked to her plants | Botany Lovers - Thought Shares

I finally understood why my grandmother talked to her plants

My grandmother always had this ritual with her old jade plant on the porch in Phoenix. She would sit there every morning before it got hot, just telling it about her day, stuff like the mail being late or the neighbor's dog barking. I used to roll my eyes about it until last spring, when I rescued a dying pothos from a garage sale for $3. I found myself narrating my workouts to it, saying things like "okay, we're doing lunges now" and it actually rooted faster than any cutting I'd ever tried. That little green buddy became my training partner in a weird way, and now I get why she did it. Has anyone else had a plant that just seems to respond when you talk to it?

2 comments

2 Comments

wadew5116d ago

Laughed at the lunges part because I do the exact same thing with my basil plant on the kitchen sill. Every time I water it I catch myself giving a little pep talk like "alright buddy, this is your big day" and my wife just shakes her head at me from the couch. I killed like four plants before this one so maybe the talking is just me feeling guilty about being a serial plant murderer. But this basil has outlived all the others by months now, so either the talking works or I finally stopped drowning them. My grandma did the same thing with her violets back in Ohio, talked to them like they were her little church group. Guess we all turn into our grandmas eventually whether we like it or not.

jana_jones16d ago

Kept a spider plant alive through a whole winter by just checking on it every morning and saying something out loud, even if it was just "looking good today." Turns out the talking made me actually pay attention to when it needed water instead of guessing, and that plant threw out babies like crazy. Now I tell every new cutting the same dumb stuff and it works every single time.