Comments on: On Guilt and Funeral Plants

By: Slender Gardener

Slender Gardener — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:17:20 +0000

I am so glad to find another gardener who struggles with houseplants. I thought I was the only one whose outdoor green thumb turns brown once I come inside. Maybe I’m the pied piper of spidermites and I just I can’t see them marching in the door behind me.

I’ve been enjoying your site.

By: Susan Tomlinson

Susan Tomlinson — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 02:54:03 +0000

Oh yes. This post speaks to me. I have killed more funeral plants than I care to think about…

By: kris at Blithewold

kris at Blithewold — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:28:13 +0000

I’ve managed to acquire a funeral plant too – a potted rose that looks alternately glorious (for about a week when it blooms) and horrendous (the rest of the year). But can I chuck it? No. It’s too laden with all the associations of the person it was meant to memorialize and the fact that I’ve kept it alive for years now. My advice – palm off your “heavy” plants now before it’s too late!

By: Mary S.

Mary S. — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:54:01 +0000

I agree with Chookie about the impracticality of funeral plants, but understand your guilt about any plant with sentiment attached to it. My family has a plant known as the “Grandma plant.” It’s a hoya that my dear grandmother had before she died in (get ready for this…) 1986. For 23 years, my mother, my sister and I have kept pieces of the grandma plant alive — in fact, we cannot kill it, and it keeps reproducing. There are at least a half dozen offspring, and many pieces are getting very large. My wise youngest sister refuses to take any of the grandma plant, saying she doesn’t want to kill it. Huh!

By: Chookie

Chookie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:17:02 +0000

Can I just say here that I think funeral plants are one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard of? Handing off a fussy plant to a grieving person to look after is downright unkind. People should be looking after themselves at such a time, not worrying about what to do with plants that have been foisted on them.

FTR, I think dracaenas are hideous. If anyone has the temerity to send a dracaena to my funeral, I shall haunt them. And I shall bring aphids!

By: Melissa

Melissa — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:13:17 +0000

I am so glad I am not the only one who feels this guilt over funeral plants!! I am about to take a co-workers funeral plant home and try to save it!!

By: Colleen Vanderlinden

Colleen Vanderlinden — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:27:28 +0000

Mr. Subjunctive:

I was hoping you’d end up chiming in on this one! I had no idea with the Dracaena–I’m going to move it to a better spot. I’m thinking now that (in addition to the damn cat eating it) I probably drowned my old Dracaena. I’ll watch the watering this time around.

Thanks so much for the advice–I need all the help I can get

By: Colleen Vanderlinden

Colleen Vanderlinden — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:25:24 +0000

Kerry: You’re right. They are just plants, after all. Phew.

Thanks for stopping by!

By: mr_subjunctive

mr_subjunctive — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:11:36 +0000

The plants might be better off if you're not reminded to water them as much. Dracaena marginata need better light than people usually give them (bright indirect or filtered sun, ideally: they are not low-light plants) and a lot less water than people usually give them (you can wait until it's almost completely dry to water, so long as it gets a good soaking; I have one in an 8-inch pot that gets watered about every six weeks). The water thing is especially important if you're using a peaty soil like Miracle Gro, which will hold water on the roots forever: they're much easier plants if given good soil that drains quickly. More or less exactly the same goes for the Schefflera. Dracaenas are supposed to be toxic to cats, though yours is not the first cat I've heard of that liked to eat them and seemed to be no worse for it. So I'm not sure how seriously to take this alleged toxicity. Good call on splitting the plants up; they would have argued over water endlessly, if you'd kept them together: mixed planters are a very bad idea for indoor plants, just in general.

By: Kerry

Kerry — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:59:49 +0000

I’m a great proponent of guilt free gardening. I also am wary of imbuing too much emotional currency into plants, because, well, they die (especially in my house. My kids call my front hall the death zone).

So don’t worry about hell – and compost any plant that looks awful. The only thing worse than guilt is living with guilt and a dead plant.