Few of life’s smaller things make me as happy as the sight of new orchid roots, and that’s never been truer than this summer.
I’ve mentioned my orchids a few times through the years. Growing them has been a hobby that brings me some joy and probably more frustration, but as a whole the plants do for me what I expect a hobby should.
They let me tune out life’s static for a while, to focus on something that presents numerous challenges, and occasional rewards when those challenges are met.
In those ways, orchids do for me much what fly fishing does, or what quilting or woodworking or distance running might do for someone who favors those pursuits.
Only recently, as we emerged from more than a year of suspended animation, did I fully recognize the link between the pandemic, my own mental health, and the orchid collection I’d allowed to slowly die in my basement last winter.
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Some initial disclosures.
I had way too many orchids to handle in even the best of spirits. My collection started small, but over the years grew to well over 100 plants. Going into the pandemic I was probably at 140 or so. By then I’d stopped counting and updating my orchid spreadsheet. Yes, I have an orchid spreadsheet.
Compounding the problem is my less-than-ideal winter setup, which involves a jumble of shelves, grow lights, and extension cords tucked into one corner of our already packed basement. I had no good watering system in place. I just lugged trays of plants over to the basement sink, soaked them one at a time, then lugged them back.
With that many plants, watering took more than three hours, a pretty big time commitment to make in a damp basement with February’s thin daylight dribbling in through glass block windows.
But I always got the job done, and the plants limped through winters largely intact, if not particularly happy. When I dragged them all outside for the summer, you could almost hear them sigh with the relief that came with high humidity and summer breezes.
This past winter was different.
Once the days shortened and the nights grew colder, I dragged the plants back in and down to the basement. The grow lights clicked on and off as usual, but my care pretty much stopped there.
It’s not that I forgot about them. I thought about them constantly, waiting down there in the artificial sunlight. I sat at my desk, looking out at the gray winter days that ran together like rivulets of melting roadside slush.
It felt like I never left the house and yet I could not drag myself to the basement to take on that watering job. The thought of it was unbearable. I became hyper-focused on not doing it, and punished myself relentlessly for not doing it.
Social media and the news kept featuring people who were using the pandemic to remodel their kitchens, to rediscover the outdoors, to learn to bake sourdough bread! What on earth was my problem? Plenty of people were enduring much worse than my isolation. I beat myself up for my petty navel-gazing.
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It took far too long for me to see the obvious, that the neglect of my plants was a symptom of neglect for myself.
I’ve always had a tendency to shut people out, but the pandemic had given me the perfect excuse. My plants and I were withering together.
I’d even used my hatred of Zoom as an excuse to jettison my psychologist, someone who I’d first gone to see after a friend’s suicide 12 years ago, and someone I’d since come to consider one of the wisest people I know.
I got back on his calendar. I shared my wholesale orchid neglect with a friend who had taken up the hobby.
Just those two steps forward, and my mood brightened.
Spring came, and the pandemic eased. I’d watered a total of three times all winter.
The basement carnage wasn’t pretty, but honestly was better than I’d expected. Most of the plants I’d lost had never done well for me, even when I had paid them better attention. I lost a few favorites too, but let it go.
The collection is now under 100, where it should have stayed to begin with.
This past week, I’ve been doing some repotting and inspections of the shakier survivors. I’ve been surprised at how quickly they have rebounded. I’m seeing healthy new roots, ivory tendrils tipped with bright green. The plants weathered a long and ugly period of their lives and came out on the other side, fighting.
I know the plants that made it through my mistreatment will sulk for a while, as orchids tend to do when you don’t get their conditions to their liking. I’ve had some withhold flowers for years, which makes them all the more special when they decide to bloom.
Orchids long ago taught me to have patience. Now they have schooled me again, this time on resilience, and tenacity.
tdecker@dispatch.com
@Theodore_Decker
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