Zebrina: Restarts in Life

I am standing on a chair at my kitchen sink, all five foot four inches of me, reaching up to the top of the cabinet to the left of it. I can barely reach the plant that sits at the top, even when standing on the tips of my toes, and of course I can’t wait until my six foot six inch tall son is available to help me because my errand is urgent. I have already waited much too long to do this; my beloved purple striped zebrina plant needs to be repotted. The vines have such a long reach that they begin at the top of the kitchen cabinet, which is nearly the ceiling, and their tips come close to touching the sink.

As I gently take the pot in my hands and guide the plant down, I cradle the vines very carefully. No matter how delicately I try to handle the zebrina, it falls apart in my arms like a bunch of loose noodles or a dying octopus with leaves.

Why is this so tragic to me? For one thing, it was the first kind of plant I was able to successfully propagate in my college biology class from a mere cutting and some hormone dust. So when I found another one a couple of years ago, I was excited. Plus, have you seen a purple striped zebrina? They are PURPLE. And striped. Pretty cool. (Yes, I’m a plant nerd.)

The other reason was, this last February (just a few months ago), I had written a poem bragging about my zebrina called “good soil”. You see, when I first got this one as a young plant, I accidentally put it into bad soil, and it died down to where only two leaves were left on the plant. The zebrina was hanging on to dear life when I replanted it. It came back and grew so fast that I had to move it to the top of the kitchen cupboard: and that’s where it stayed, growing until the tips almost touched the kitchen sink. It got so big, my daughter hardly recognized it when she came to visit me for Christmas in 2020.

The poem equated the plant’s growth to my life; the zebrina plant had mirrored my growth in a time when once I had to throw out some bad “soil” in my own life that had me “reduced to 2 leaves”. After I “changed my soil”, I was able to thrive again. It’s amazing that leaving an abusive situation and exploring the self can alter so many aspects of one’s being.

But now that the plant fell apart, does that change the way it mirrors life?

I don’t think so.

First of all, botanically speaking, why did the plant fall apart? Well, for one thing, I have a problem with trimming things back. I just don’t have the heart to kill part of a growing thing — even when it’s best for the plant. Also, I had waited too long to repot, and since I hadn’t trimmed the vines, they were too heavy for the root system and the single set of stems from which it originated. In other words — maintenance and the need for change.

So what did this dying-leafed-octopus-noodle-mess teach me about life? When in good soil, we grow. But even in good times, and especially with growth, we have change. Part of change is amending our lives when things get to be too big for us. Even once we reach a certain age — things never stop changing. We experience changes and restarts again and again in our lives — new jobs, kids moving out, retirement, moving homes, remodeling, graduating, marriage, divorce, deaths, births…so many things force growth and a need to “repot” or fall apart.

So what did I do with this mass of purple striped mess laying around me?

I took a couple pots of good, new soil, trimmed the vines down to a few usable strands, moistened the ends and dipped them in rooting hormone, and positioned them in the new soil to take root and start over in their new home.

Now they are sitting amongst the other plants where they can get the best sun. I hope they take. It’s not like they haven’t been here before. Heck — once they were down to 2 leaves, and lived to tell the tale!

We all have our restarts in life. At least this one came out with a good story. Imagine what the zebrinas are telling the neighbor plants. “If you think this is bad…you should have been here last time!” If only I could speak plant.

Thanks for reading.

Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold

May 19, 2021