I can­not say exact­ly when I be­ca­me a plant ent­hu­si­ast. I am in­te­res­ted in hou­se plants, cut flo­wers, and even edib­le plants. The ama­zing growth of plants is fas­ci­na­ting and ma­kes me dream of new plant in­di­vi­du­als.

When my ol­der sis­ter mo­ved away from home to study, she left be­hind a few hou­se plants. I in­he­ri­ted them along with her old room and did my best to le­arn to take care of them. My sis­ter’s old pot­ted ivy took a long time to die, though I of­ten for­got – first ac­ci­den­tal­ly and la­ter on pur­po­se – to wa­ter it. I still have one of those in­he­ri­ted plants, and it is doing fine. I have re-plan­ted it in a big­ger pot many ti­mes. The ne­west white pot is re­al­ly nice.

Alt­hough I love my hou­se plants, they can be dif­fi­cult at ti­mes. To go out on a va­ca­ti­on, for ins­tan­ce, I need to have so­me­o­ne come in and wa­ter the plants. When I go to my child­hood home for a Christ­mas break or anot­her lon­ger va­ca­ti­on, I of­ten haul the whole jung­le along with me. Sad­ly, ho­we­ver, it is usu­al­ly ea­sier on my way back, with fe­wer bo­xes to car­ry. It may be, af­ter all, that plants do not en­joy in­te­res­ting trips qui­te as much as hu­mans to.

My plants usu­al­ly sur­vi­ve pret­ty well, but if one of them choo­ses to give up life, it is not di­rect­ly my fault. At le­ast that is what I tell my­self in or­der not to be dis­cou­ra­ged. Of­ten win­ter­ti­me dark­ness is simp­ly too much for plants that love light. Luc­ki­ly, there is al­wa­ys a for­tu­na­te side to the de­ath of a plant: I can go and buy a new one! There are ac­tu­al­ly many good re­a­sons to buy a new plant, es­pe­ci­al­ly if you come ac­ross a lo­ve­ly flo­wer pot and, all of a sud­den, find a sui­tab­le in­ha­bi­tant for it. Some of my friends may have he­ard me say, ”I just hap­pe­ned to buy a new plant.”

It is ab­so­lu­te­ly enc­han­ting to fol­low growth. It is a lo­ve­ly surp­ri­se to see a plant grow new le­a­ves or a cut­ting in a glass of wa­ter pro­du­ce tiny roots. My la­test test with cut­tings was a jade plant. My mi­se­rab­le old jade plant col­lap­sed a few months ago. I took some le­a­ves and pla­ced them on soil to start gro­wing. It cer­tain­ly took some time and even a bit lon­ger, but all that time I pa­tient­ly wa­te­red the le­a­ves. Now they are sho­wing signs of new growth and tiny roots. I can ne­ver stop won­de­ring this: how does the leaf know what I want it to do? Fa­ced by this mi­rac­le of growth, I al­wa­ys feel very small. It is a conc­re­te re­min­der of how well the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her has plan­ned eve­ryt­hing.

Last win­ter we got gla­zing for the bal­co­ny of our sha­red ren­tal apart­ment. This will be my first sum­mer in town, and I have been dre­a­ming of all the things I can grow on our bal­co­ny. I star­ted by brin­ging out a few po­ta­to­es to sprout and so­wing seeds of chi­ves in a pot. The chi­ves sprou­ted in just a few days. I have al­so sown seeds of let­tu­ce, car­rot and ba­sil. I hope I can la­ter tell you about the abun­dant crop that I har­ves­ted on my north-fa­cing bal­co­ny.

I am plan­ning to have a set of shel­ves on the bal­co­ny, so that my plants can en­joy some light abo­ve the so­lid rai­ling. I have not yet come ac­ross sui­tab­le shel­ves, but I won’t give up.

Don’t for­get to ad­mi­re the growth of plants and the un­be­lie­vab­le light of the sum­mer. And re­mem­ber to thank Him that gi­ves all growth!

Text: Hel­mi Yr­jä­nä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen