Recently, I repotted a few houseplants after a “plant buying spree.” I had intended to buy a Christmas tree, but like any number of things in my life, I debated between yes and no too long, and the trees were gone. So instead, I ended up with new houseplants.
I have what some call a green thumb with house plants and I feel infinitely better in my house when I have lots of greenery. I had close to 20 plants in my 1-bedroom apartment back in Minnesota, including one golden pothos that I’d been nurturing – and it nurturing me – for two decades. In the move to San Francisco, I gave them all away to good homes and have been slowly rebuilding my plant collection. As I rebuild my collection, I’ve been experimenting with size rather than number of houseplants this time and my biggest plant, a ficus tree, measures over 6 feet tall.
A plant that is ready to be repotted has just a few roots coming out the holes(s) in the bottom indicating it is reaching for new space to expand. And when you repot the plant, you typically put the plant in a new pot that’s just a little bit bigger than the current pot and the plant happily grows new roots in the new dirt and space in the pot and shoots up new leaves outside the pot. However, sometimes if one isn’t paying attention, a plant becomes pot bound. This means the plant outgrew the pot some time ago. A pot bound plant has a lot of roots growing out of the hole(s) in the bottom of the pot instead of just a few as well as a lot of roots growing within the pot and this indicates that the plant has been hopeful for a new pot for a while.
As part of the repotting process for a peace lily plant, I began to gently loosen the roots. When you repot a plant, you want to gently loosen the roots around the edges of the dirt so that the roots are encouraged to grow into the dirt of the new pot instead of staying stuck to the dimensions and patterns of the old pot. The more I loosened, the more I realized just how pot bound this plant was. Not only did it have many roots growing out of every hole in the bottom of the pot, but it had roots growing around and around the inside of the pot, and even had some roots growing back up and out the top of the pot in a desperate attempt to find more soil and nutrients. By the time I’d gently pried the roots around the edges loose, I realized there were a number of roots that were actually more than twice the height of the original pot it had been in. This peace lily was the most pot bound plant I’ve ever had!
As I repotted, I also marveled at how the peace lily looked healthy on top, above the dirt, but how much was going on underneath the dirt that I couldn’t see. The plant needed much more than a couple pot sizes bigger to be able to really stretch out, but unfortunately all I had was the pot I’d already bought for it just a couple of sizes bigger. As the peace lily grows into the new pot, I’ll be keeping an eye on it as it will probably need a new pot again much sooner than the other plants will.
As I repotted my plants, my mind began to wander and think about humans. How do these same ideas play out in our human lives? How do we recognize that we’ve grown all the more we can in our current situation, be it a job, a city, a friendship, a relationship, and we need to “repot” ourselves into a new job, a new city, a new friendship to continue our growth and continue becoming all we can be? Do our lives sometimes look healthy on the surface even through we’ve far outgrown our current situation? And what happens when we ignore the signs or fail to notice we’ve grown all we can in a space and become pot bound? What does that look like? Does it show up in our bodies through aches and pains or dis-ease? In how we treat others when we no longer lean into a friendship or relationship but instead begin to lean away? In how we treat ourselves when we stop eating well or exercising or dreaming or believing in our own potential? What happens when we do finally realize we’re not ready for just a new pot but are desperately pot bound and need a far bigger pot; can we still make that transition gracefully or is it necessarily dramatic?
As I approach the ninth anniversary of my move to San Francisco from Minnesota this May and nearly eight years in the same apartment, these wonderings seem particularly poignant. What is your experience in your life? How have your “repottings” gone? Write me an email or comment here… I’d love to hear from you.
And keep living the examined life… the examined life takes energy and it is ALWAYS worth it!