Growth amid stagnance: why plants are the antithesis of quarantine
It was July when Mom got her first plant. When I say first, I don’t mean the first plant she’d ever taken care of. We grew up with gardens in every home we’d occupied, from the fervent front yard of my Lola Guada in Antique, Iloilo to the modest metal rack of houseplants back in our hometown. When I say first, I’m talking about a plant that marked a turning point for us.
July marked three months after lockdown had officially been called. At the onset, I’d welcomed the quarantine as an opportunity to try new things. I jogged thrice every week, cooked something new nearly every day, wrote blog posts for my newly initiated book review project, and started picking up my video games again. But over time, it would suffice (but also understate) to say that these were only fleeting joys. I retired my running shoes to walk back into virtual classrooms, taking a break from the gear required by newly instated health protocols. My cooking was reserved to mornings when I didn’t have class until eventually work piled up and I needed mornings to myself, too. My blog was a bookshelf collecting dust and each match on my favorite battle royale felt like a monotonous repeat of the last. As much as quarantine offered novelty, its rhythms eventually became mundane.
Hence, July marked the first plant to properly grace our home, one that ushered in an era of newness for our household.
Caring for plants has become one of the top hobbies to pick up on in the last months. Social media has seen a rise in plant-related content, trading Messenger blues and Instagram purples for the multicolor spectrum of plant greens. As the daughter of a mom who takes pride in her collection of leafy children, I‘ve adopted a childlike curiosity for what took this formerly hippie obsession into a new wave of cultivation, exploring “roots” perhaps beyond those of our earthy companions.
Self-sufficiency for the halamanongs and halamanangs
If you’re reading this and you’re my age, it’s highly likely you have at least one if not both parents who are proud halamanongs or halamanangs, my own fond term for the adults who bring their wisdom into the newly coined plantito and plantita phenomenon. Rica and Dino Santos are the proud parents not only of their children, but to a rich yard of plants in every shape and size. From spices all up to herbs, the pair now have their own dedicated pantry in their backyard. “[Gardening in quarantine] motivated me to be self-reliant with some food items,” said Dino. “Aside from that, it also gave me a more positive outlook on life.” His wife, on the other hand, also acknowledged the beauty of the practice. “At first, we just wanted to challenge ourselves and see if we could go beyond ornamental plants. But gardening has made quarantine more bearable. It has made kindness easier.”
Beauty and good energy for plantitos and plantitas
For some of us, the idea of comfort may not necessarily be having a little backyard community ready, but just having beauty sowed right at our doorstep. Raine was one of many fresh graduates who walked the virtual carpet to claim her diploma last October, now growing over 10 plants in her room and around the house to pass the time while working remotely. “When I started, I was just buying different plants that I found pretty. I researched a lot before buying [before], but now I kind of got the hang of it,” Raine said.
For Raine, it started with cleaning out her room. “I had this lull space that used to have nothing. Since [my tita] had a plant, I decided I would get a plant too. Eventually, she got tired of it, so she gave me all of her plants. Originally it was to fill up the lull space, but [soon] it became a little project of mine to fill up the side of my room,” said Raine, motioning to a wall that was now complimented by plants of different heights and sizes. “As a fresh grad, you don’t have that much to do, [so] it was nice to have a little project too.”
For many starting out gardening in quarantine, plants may provide just the features to up the ante of now multipurpose living spaces. Plants may also act as living ornaments, capable of going beyond the decorative aspect to provide benefits for one’s health. In addition to providing cleaner air indoors, studies have shown that plants can help reduce physiological and psychological stress in individuals as well as improve concentration. “I do all my work in my room for 24 hours every day. Having plants has benefits: the oxygen they give you, some can absorb radiation. It [also] makes my workspace look better,” said Raine.
Creating connection in spite of distance
Quarantine has relegated most of us to the confines of our four walls. Even with the eased quarantine restrictions in the Philippines, travel remains limited, and views may be as constant as the ceiling above your bed for months on end. This is a sentiment shared by Elery, one of many freshmen beginning her college journey in the pioneering world of online class. What began as an initiative to decorate her room for classes grew into a passion that would intersect across all aspects of her life, from her small business to her social circles.
“In my circle and communities, I feel like I was one of the first to get into plants,” said Elery, a self-proclaimed plantita of ornamentals, known around the block for her keen interest in plants. “When I got into plants, wala talaga akong kilala. The more I got into them, the more word gets around and my plant business [also materialized]. Eventually, people saw that and got into plants too. The power to touch someone’s life enough for them to try something new and step out of their comfort zone-it makes me feel so good, especially because it’s for the environment.”
Plants may very well be part of a new wave of hobbies for the “wellness generation,” a term coined to describe millennials’ fondness for self-care rituals as a worthy luxury expense. Although luxury may be the word, plants in the Philippines retail for a grand array of prices, from the thousands of pesos all down to free. “Since my Mom already has a garden and I’m broke, I started doing this thing called propagation, where you cut stems from plants, repot them, and wait for them to grow roots,” added Elery.
Signs of life when we need them the most
Even with the inherent comfort raising plants brings with its low-maintenance charm and overall healing properties, there’s no denying the external comfort every plant has brought to its owner in these times. The comfort of knowing that there is change when, visually, it seems the gears rewind every day.
Plants are a mark of time when time appears to have come to a standstill. For some of us, it’s a “visual representation of time passing by, time not wasted because it turned into something beautiful,” to quote Raine. For some of us, plants could have even been the catalyst to breaking out of bad habits, like for Elery. “There were times when I broke down. I tried so many alternatives, but none of them added up. [But] when I started getting into plants, I got so occupied that I forgot about [my bad habits]. I felt so grateful. Maybe this was God telling me ‘you’re not alone, here is something to remind you that it’s not the end of the world for you yet.”
“You’re not alone, here is something to remind you that it’s not the end of the world for you yet.”
Lola Guada’s garden was lush with every plant imaginable in a provincial home. Calamansi bushes neatly cropped the small metal gate to our cousin’s house, nestled right beside ours. By the grating lining our long driveway, papaya trees drooped with fruit like little church bells. Gumamela stems as tall as people towered along with them, reaching the windows of the next-door boarding house. These and all our other trees and plants lined either side of our front yard, greeting us like a royal archway of earth every time we drove in to park the old white Sedan, windows open and car seats warm as the Antique sun could ever be. Over the years, our green carpet entryway morphed with the seasons. You knew it was October if storms brought showers of fallen makopa fruits, while long summers were marked by the blushing of the little red santan flowers at the front of our gate. The last time we had visited, the overgrowth beyond our apple green gate made it truly seem like an archway, procuring shadows against the now more evident sun.
Plants had always been a mark of time, even then. For those of us used to the humdrums of a simple life and daily routine, plants were the little changes we could look forward to. Compared to the grandeur of concrete and the flashiness of streetlights, gardens used to only be worth a glance. Now, with the the city made majorly off-limits and only the comfort of our homes to be graced with, perhaps we may now trade in the flashiness of city life with the smaller joys in life.
