Let’s Talk Nature, March 2026: This Old Potted Plant

In 1964, in a North Dakota hospital, my grandfather lay dying from an inoperable brain tumor.  According to my mother, a cheery houseplant called Wax Plant, or Hoya, kept vigil near his bedside.

After he died, my mother claimed the Hoya.  That plant moved with her from North Dakota to Massachusetts to Maine, and finally to retirement on Cape Cod.  It lived in a green glass bowl nestled in a macramé hanger held aloft by a curtain rod in the center of a large west-facing, double window where it could stretch its scantily-leaved arms to either side.  Once a year, the Hoya would explode in purply-magenta and white-tinged waxy little blooms that were delightfully fragrant but always had my mother running to her allergy medicine so she could endure the intensity of the scent.

When Mom died in 2014, I took over ownership of the Hoya. This plant was a living link to my paternal grandfather and I felt some trepidation.  Could I keep this weathered and well-traveled plant alive? Stay tuned…

Speaking of keeping a plant alive, a tropical plant named “Medusa” outgrew the condominium she shared with an older couple and got a second life as the star attraction in the greenhouse at Hyannis Country Garden. A sign in her spacious pot reads: “Medusa, Thaumatophyllum dipinnatifidum.’’ Traditionally, she would have been called by the easier-to-pronounce botanical name of Philodendron selloum, or Lacy Tree Philodendron.  Now, members of this plant family of giant tropicals have been reclassified, including this massive giant with ladders of leaf scars and epiphytic roots.

As Medusa grows, she sheds stems that leave large, eye-shaped scars on the trunk, where each stem was connected to the plant’s circulatory system.  Medusa also has roots that grow horizontally from her trunk, then reach down to stabilize her as she grows.  Botanists call such roots “epiphytic” or aerial roots.  These are a common trait on tropical plants that live on tropical trees.

The Hyannis Country Garden greenhouse keepers, Marsha Potash and Ashley Lariviere, are passionate about indoor plants and have an impressive collection they care for, year-round.  Given the chance to express how they feel about their leafy charges, they grin at each other and the words tumble out:

• “We chose the greenhouse because we get to work with these plants all year round.”
• “This work is about sharing people’s passions for plants.”
• “People just wander around, some serious, some new. And interest in plants is ageless.”
• “We can pass on the love of plants!”
• “We can teach people how to be better plant parents and build confidence.”
• “This is compassionate work. Lots of people have relationships with their plants.”

All of these expressions of delight emphasize the importance of houseplants.  Add family history, and the rewards and responsibilities of keeping a houseplant thriving become clear.

After we admire Medusa, they point me to the Euphorbia family, also known as the Spurge family, a couple of the more common members being Poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima) and crown-of-thorns (Euphorbia milii).  Marsha’s personal crown-of-thorns plant that she rescued 25 years ago features twisty and contorted, thorn-covered arms sporting tufts of fleshy leaves.  This graceful specimen is silhouetted against a greenhouse window.  It’s covered with deep pink blooms and surrounded at its base with pots of a fancy new hybrid.

“Every time something is hybridized,” says Marsha, “it loses something.  In this case, these hybrids need more frequent watering, unlike the original that thrives in dry soil.

All the Euphorbias, thorns or no thorns, have a mildly poisonous milky latex sap when stems are broken. But they are beautiful, from the greenhouse plants to the perennials that are offered at garden centers.

Next, they bring me a small pot of something they call “the plant that will save the planet.” (Really?  Please hurry up!). It’s called Portulacaria afra or Specboom, or Elephant Plant.

This succulent South African native grows in thick colonies.  Elephants like it, people like it, and apparently, large stands of it do a better job of taking carbon out of the air than deciduous forests of equivalent size.  People use it in salads, for medicine, and even build huts with the stems.

The women each take a little leaf and chew on it.  I do too.  It’s sour, but pleasant.

I feel like I want to buy one, but I hold myself back.  The plant is not exactly pretty, but its ecological value provides a strong attraction.

“We pass along these tidbits,” says Marsha, “because plants are more than stems and leaves.”

Says Ashley, “it doesn’t matter who you are or how you dress.  Through houseplants, I can relate to people who are totally different from me.  It’s so wonderful!”

My friend Doreen is proud of her houseplants, one in particular.  She is the keeper of her mother-in-law’s spider plant or Chlorophytum.  She’s pretty sure the plant was at least ten years old when she assumed ownership and she’s now had it for 32 years.  This mother spider plant begat zillions of little spiders, many of which Doreen has given away to her stepchildren over the years. “It’s a little something to remember their grandmother by,’’ she says. “Some have had more success than others in keeping the spiders going, but luckily, mama plant keeps making more babies I can share with them.’’

I currently have a monster Aloe that a friend gave me.  It started as a three-sprigged plant in a teensy pot, a piece from her grandmother’s Aloe.  It now features uncountable pointy, soft stems and acts like a hanging plant due to its excessive weight.

I remember driving through Boston as a younger person and being flat-out terrified.  It was my first attempt at driving alone in the big city, being a rural-raised girl with a history of scary city driving experiences.  I was alone, pre-Garmin or Google Maps, and the Big Dig changed the exits that my family told me I needed to take.  The only thing that kept me slightly sane for that unnerving experience was talking to the large Norfolk Island pine (that’s Araucaria heterophylla, for you enquiring minds) that was sitting serenely in its pot in the back seat, waiting to be delivered to a new home.

And as for grandfather’s Hoya, it thrived with me, offering a new crop of thick, shiny leaves.

Then, for no reason that I can pinpoint, it up and died.

Yes.  The Hoya’s 54-year-old sojourn ended with me.

I did take the one remaining, sort-of green leaf off the dead stalk and attempted to root it, but to no avail.

Maybe it ran its life course.  Maybe I screwed up.  Sooner or later we all reach the end of the path, regardless of how hard we might try to prevent it.

I do mourn it, though, because it was more than a plant.

It was a memory.

It was a tie to those it outlived – a little being who grew and bloomed in conditions not of its own choosing, moving across the country and spending its entire long life in the same pot and soil in which it started.

And that is perhaps one of the best traits of our houseplants.  They take what they are given and do their best, day after day, year after year.

Grandpa’s Hoya lives on, in my mind.

We should all be so lucky.