Pilea in the Time of a Pandemic
By Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Pilea plants can make even the blackest thumbs look positively green. Not just green, but lime, forest, Kelly, viridian, jade, jungle, shamrock, chartreuse, and even honeydew. At a time of so much stillness and uncertainty, the pilea gave me so much promise.
The pandemic still rages on here in the south where I’m writing from in northern Mississippi. Hummingbirds are in a thick frenzy around my back porch as they take their last sips of sugar water placed all around our county as we live in one of the final rest stops for ruby-throated hummingbirds before they take one last swallow of sweetness and begin their long journey to Mexico and central America.
I have always loved gardening since I was a little girl, trailing behind my mother carrying tomatoes in the bucket of my summer dress as a toddler in the suburbs of Chicago. But last summer in particular while we were stuck to the confines of our home, I took on indoor gardening with a zeal and fervor (like so many hundreds of thousands of people also did, according to any plant-related search on social media, especially Instagram).
And why not— in the face of so much illness and death, tending to a little pot (or 3 or 9!) felt like I could make things whole and green again, even in the face of so much worry. And with two tween boys around, it was a way for us to share in a project that didn’t feel like me nagging them to do their chores, but rather, a kind of greenhouse experiment to break up their daily zoom learning and screen time for tests and quizzes.
Pilea plants (or, depending who you listen to, UFO plant, money plant, or friendship plant) are famous for their cute, round, and glossy leaves that dangle on the edge of a slim, clean-lined stem. Each plant looks like a child’s drawing of a bouquet of green lollipops. But the magic lies in the singular leaf of the pilea plant. If you break off a leaf with as much of the slender stem as you can and place it in a small bud vase, it will begin to root within a week and soon, tiny new circular leaves will start to bubble up from the base of that original leaf too.
And then you can do the same thing with that new green froth of leaves and again and again and they make the perfect gift to share and leave with neighbors on a porch. All from one little plant that you can buy at most nurseries or even Etsy. With the anxiety-producing news and reports of new variants, I like to think of all these green circles spreading a comfort and balm to others. And besides—it feels so good to get your hands in potting soil. And it feels so good to see a fresh sprout and curve of green.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of four books of poetry and the nature essay collection, World of Wonders, which is a current Nevada Reads book selection. She is professor of English at the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
Photos/Aimee Nezhukumatathil.