Plants

Whenever I get a shock by grabbing the door handle (for an explanation read: ‘Shocking!’ first), I always walk towards my plants for reassurance and gently stroke the stems of my Sanseveria next to the TV and the tropical plant with giant leaves in the corner of my living room.

Who could have imagined that I would ever care so much about plants?

To be fair, the ones I own are easy to maintain and grow steadily with or without having me around. I like how they bring life to my place and even started talking to them.

This morning I read an article on The Correspondent about the power of plants. Or, better said, the limits of their power.

All types of documentaries I’ve watched over the last two years (for example: “Kiss the Ground”) got me excited to believe that plants were the solution to all the problems considering soil depletion. All we needed was some shovels, nutrients, water and seeds. Desertification could be countered by replanting the earth. I was all set to start digging abroad and re-green the earth and make an end to the Sahara. Hell yeah, I was even ready to sacrifice my own plants, untill I read this article which stated that some terrains are not suitable for this.

In fact, it would kill the life of organisms that have adapted to the deserts’ conditions. Only areas that at one time were filled with trees are suitable for replanting.

So, since we started talking, I feel like telling my plants they probably won’t be deployed to help out a foreign country anytime soon.