Overwatering your plants or relationships will cause rot. They will become waterlogged and mushy due to the sogginess, eventually falling apart. Relationships, like plants, need air. To avoid this mushy death, open up the windows, poke some holes in the soil and let the thing breathe. With a hand on your own heart, give your plant a kiss and gentle stroke of its yellowing leaves, set it by a sunny window and then walk away for a while. When you check back in a few weeks later, you may find that the soil has dried out, some mushy leaves have fallen away, and a couple of baby bright green shiny leaves are forming; signs of life. Balance has been restored.
If you under-water your plants or relationships, they will crisp and grow dehydrated from neglect. Their soil will crust over and harden around the roots, leaves will dry up and fall off, until at last the roots themselves wither and die. To avoid this sad crunchy death, completely repot your plants in fresh nutritious damp soil once or twice a year and water consistently, when needed. To know when water is needed: observe. Pay attention. Respond. Your plants are always communicating. When you learn their signals, your dance of care and attention will feel alive and enjoyable as you attune and then witness the thriving that results.
Disorganized attachment can work for plants, but is kind of exhausting for everyone and I don’t recommend it in the long term. Disorganized attachment is apparently the worst kind of attachment according to attachment theorists, which is a bummer for my partners and sometimes my plants, but if you’re a person with any trauma and/or experience with ADHD (hi) I find this mode of plant care mostly interesting and educational. The benefits are that while moving plants around to various windows and configurations and pots and watering conditions, you can learn a lot about the behavior and needs of your various plants, and yourself, in the process. You may learn for example that your calathea really liked it up there on the fridge and didn’t appreciate being moved. There may be no observable reason for this, and you may feel stubborn about wanting that calathea on the coffee table, but the calathea wants what it wants and so you have a decision to make. Some of your changes to your plants will produce positive results, while others will fail, thus the learning and the invitation to pay attention to what does work and lean in there.
Over time, with attention and willingness to move toward what feels good and what produces healthy plants and people, you may find that your disorganized attachment turns into secure attachment, and a feeling of calm thriving will be the reward.
Jaclyn Edds Konczal | April 2023