A FIDDLE-LEAF FIG WILL HUMBLE YOU

I don’t like plants… I DO NOT LIKE PLANTS AT ALL. They are so alive and needy… it is almost like having a pet you keep forgetting you have until you remember and the nerves hit. Over the past couple of years I have amassed and killed a few plants because with plants, you just never know. I just cannot deal with the neediness y’all. Come on!

As a child my mum never let me in her garden to water plants because every time I watered them they died. That led to years of me believing that I did not have a green thumb that I killed plants just by being in their presence. But forgetting that every day. Every single day. When she was not looking I’d water the plants and sog up the soils. IS IT ANY WONDER THEY DIED GIRL!! I’ve grown up believing I am a plant killer. And I am. No really, I am. I killed a cactus. A whole cactus who needs nothing not even the frequent watering. I killed a cactus. Now I watch my other cactus like a hawk praying she too does not die because there is something more disturbing about killing a cactus that makes one feel less human. I couldn’t deal with that sense of failure.
But, this is a post about my fiddle leaf fig tree. She is the second one I’ve bought in a year… yes, the first one died from apparently being moved about a lot from one position to the next; because fiddle leaf figs do not like to be moved. At all.

Do not like to be touched I’ve learned.

Do not even like eye contact. So I take that to mean we water them with a blind fold and hope for the best.

Because of her line of sight she is constantly on my mind. She is the last thing I see at night and the first thing I see in the morning; depending on the sun, her morning glow is celestial.

Giselle, is her name and she has been the single most important plant on my mind since I got her. I have a peace lily I have never once spared a thought for, she just grows and wilts and bounces back again with some watering… but not Giselle. Until this morning that is. She is positioned at the foot of my bed in a corner that gets the most stunning light. Granted, I’ve moved her a few times across the foot of the bed but never from the same vicinity; because she might just combust. Every time I water her I say a prayer because you never know. The whole finger test is not working for me. This morning however, I deigned to make eye contact with her and wouldn’t you know it… THREE NEW LEAVES!! This has got to be the best thing ever since the onset of this pandemic plant wise.

Imagine something as simple as your plant growing new leaves to completely make you feel like you are winning at life? A fiddle leaf fig will absolutely humble you.