The healing nature of biffing out a house plant
Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Virginia Fallon is a Stuff senior writer, columnist and pot plant murderer based in Wellington.
OPINION: When Gloria died it was a relief.
We’d known for ages she was sick, it’s just that even at her worst we thought she’d pull through, and all that hoping had finally taken its toll.
So one evening a little while ago, I found myself gently breaking the news that it was all over.
“Gloria’s gone,” I said, “I’ve biffed her in the wheelie bin.”
**READ MORE:
* Help your houseplants survive your next holiday
* How do you relax when you've bought a $27,000 houseplant?
* Houseplants looking sick? The plant doctor answers your questions
**
It was a grim ending for the ruby ficus that used to live on the coffee table in a bright yellow pot.
Right up until the last few weeks of her short life she was everything a houseplant should be: big, healthy and completely non-demanding, which is exactly why I’d bought her in the first place. The man in the shop had stopped short of swearing that she was unkillable, though he had come close enough.
“Any idiot can keep these guys alive,” he’d promised, so I slapped her on Afterpay and happily carted her home for a promising future together. We all know how that ended.
Like so many other people I caught the houseplant bug during the peak of the pandemic, when they were a little ray of green light in a world gone mad.
The benefits of pot plants have long been known, but it was in those days that thousands of us really discovered their healing nature. They reduce stress, improve mental health and filter the air; most of all they just make us happy, and goodness knows we all needed more of that.
The plants worked for me, and I’ve since filled the house with the things, a bit like Prozac in pots. I fuss and fiddle and, just like Prince Charles, talk happily to them while I’m at it.
But as Gloria’s leaves fell away, so did that happiness, and as she sat droopy and ill it was as if she’d stopped pumping out oxygen and was instead sucking the very air out of the house.
New research from the Royal Horticultural Society and the University of Reading says there’s a reason for that.
The study had participants rate different houseplants for their appearance and perceived effect on air quality. A healthy palm invoked “holidays and happy memories” while a sickly specimen was 1.5 times more depressing than its friends.
Ultimately, the study found unhealthy plants upped stress levels and made people think they were breathing dirty air. Remove them, the researchers recommended.
That’s something I should have done with Gloria long before I carted her off to the bin, because a sick plant is a bit like a birthing video; nobody wants to see it.
So it’s with new research-backed ruthlessness that I’ve been eyeing up my other plants.
There are dozens of the things and most of them have names. Flo flourishes next to the television, Rick Danko and his mates soak up sunlight on the bookshelf and Tso sports new growth from his spot near the window.
Meanwhile, Joe Don Baker is looking decidedly limp on the kitchen bench where I’ve been watching him sag suspiciously for weeks. The syngonium has stuck it out for years, but now he’s on notice.
It was guilt that made me keep Gloria around for so long while I tried to fix her. I watered, fertilised and pleaded but in the end biffing her out made me feel happier than bringing her home.
Because the study’s conclusion was something we all already know: if something is making you unhappy, and you can’t fix it, get rid of it. Happiness will be found in the space left behind.