The Swedish Ivy
On February 5th, 2019, I began my observation of the Swedish Ivy. In the beginning, I thought of the Swedish Ivy as something I owned and controlled. As time moved on, I learned that we were actually codependent, individuals that thrived with each other’s presence. I will never forget how much I learned from the Swedish Ivy once I truly started paying attention to it. My (official) observations ended on April 16th, 2019.
What follows is a ten-week story of Swedish Ivy.
#1
Week 1 Swedish Ivy Observations:
This Tuesday at 5PM it was a bright gray day. On a day like that, the yellowing side of my Swedish Ivy (which I’m starting to think is due to that side’s proximity to the drafty window) doesn’t look as sickly, and the plump green leaves — the new growth of the plant — look fresh and robust. I’ve noticed that the underside of the leaves all have a purplish tone, similar to the color of the veins of the leaves, but I’m guessing this might also be due to Winter’s presence. Despite the fact that my roommate and I keep our apartment at a toasty 70 degrees Fahrenheit year round, mid-Winter is still able to affect my plant through invisible means: the crispy cold air seeping in through the window’s old seal; the pale sunlight thats steadily growing to greet Spring yet still disappears around 5:30PM. The new growth on top of the plant I can tell is already starting to grow towards the light, seeking it out blindly. I try and turn the plant every so often so that it doesn’t grow too much to one side and then topple over. If this plant was outdoors, that would probably not be a fear of mine, but here it only has one side of light. I sometimes wonder if it knows it’s not outdoors, and if I’ve trained it to like the indoors. But nature still communes with my Swedish Ivy, and vice versa.
#2
Week 2 Swedish Ivy Observations:
Before this assignment, I’d never thought to take photos of my plants to document its changes. It feels almost intrusive on the plants privacy. I view my plants like some view their pets — a younger addition to the family but more fiercely independent than children. As such, I give a fair amount of love and attention to my plants, and in return they reward me with oxygen and visual comfort. But I also let them grow and silently do their own thing. To take photos in order to document my Swedish Ivy makes me feel separate from it in some ways (its now more like my subject than part of what makes up my home), and yet these photos also make me more aware of what’s going on in its life than before.
In particular, looking back at my steadily growing collection of photos, I can’t help but notice how quickly the pair of new leaves have sprouted up from the top of the new growth. It seems like at first these leaves’ focus was on growing outwards. These delicate little leaves have willfully squeezed out from between their predecessors, all twisted, spiky and thin as they pushed aside room for themselves. Next — surely after a sigh of relief and rest — came the plumping up. Still not quite as round and robust as the more mature leaves, these guys have just begun to fill out. It may be some time more however until they’re ready to let go of their identity as the new leaves on the stem.
#3
Week 3 Swedish Ivy Observations:
As humid summer settled into foggy fall, and then dry winter, I’d kept my Swedish Ivy by the windowsill. But then the draft started killing half of the plant, and so I had to move it about a foot away onto my desk. From there, the waxing rays of early spring sun can still reach it, but it seems not quite enough.
As someone interested in gardening, farming, and generally flora at large, I’ve recently come to learn one of those things that once learned, it seems silly to not have intuitively known it the whole time. The bigger the leaves, the easier it is for the plant to live happily with minimal amount of light. My Swedish Ivy has small scalloped leaves that — while it was by the window — clustered together thickly. With more sun exposure it stayed compact and sprouted up new leaves wherever there was space on its stems.
Not very long after moving it to the desk, I noticed the new top growth (front and center in all the photos so far) started to bend and stretch towards the light again, towards the window that had been half killing it. Well-versed plant growers call that kind of growth (tall stems with leaves spaced far apart) “leggy.” It’s a plants way of saying, hey, I’m not getting enough light over here! But I like to think of my Swedish Ivy as stretching out it’s leafy legs, getting ready to walk back over to the sun and settle down again.
#4
Week 4 Swedish Ivy Observations:
I’ve made the executive decision of moving my Swedish Ivy back to the windowsill. Warm weather is on its way and so the draft will eventually become some much needed fresh, warm air flow. Besides, I can always help my plant return to full health, but I can’t do anything to make it less leggy. When my windowsill succulents become leggy (they suffer regardless of where I put them in the winter time — most of them are meant for blazingly sunny, hot, and dry environments in the first place), I can just cut off the stem and plug the leggy part back in the soil. It’ll simply sprout new roots and continue growing. With my Swedish Ivy, once it become leggy, it’ll stay that way for a very long time. I view it as the plants way of showing what it’s lived through, just another part of its life story.
One of my main observations from this week’s couple of photos is how much the Swedish Ivy has actually moved. I think I’ve assumed the common Western idea that plants are stationary things, rather than beings capable of their own mobility. If anything, my Swedish Ivy is not stationary. Just as humans start out close to home as children and branch out the older they get, my Swedish Ivy has stretched out and explored via vines, shoots, and new growth. (I also noticed some new baby leaves coming in at the top of what I’d previously been referring to as the “new growth!”)
#5
Week 5 Swedish Ivy Observations:
The Swedish Ivy has now outgrown the frame of the photos I take. Even though I try to be consistent each week by attempting to keep the rim of the pot consistent with the edge of my pictures, as the Swedish Ivy keeps growing taller and bushier, it becomes harder and harder to keep the camera as close enough to the plant without having the lens be in the leaf. It’s become especially hard to do so after I’ve watered the plant, since I don’t want to soak the lens.
I’ve noticed that as I water my plant (which I’d done just before the 3/5/19 photo), it’s kind of how you see parents feeding their children: one sip of water for the plants, one sip of water for myself. I’ve noticed how the beads of water sit on the shiny leaves of the Swedish Ivy in the same way they sit on my my lips. I’ve noticed how pale the leaves get with lack of sun, the way I get pale with lack of sun (we both are Swedish after all).
Truly this Swedish Ivy is part of my family. I received the original clipping from my mother’s plant and have used information I’ve learned from my parents and uncle to help care for it. Whenever my plant is not looking its best, my first instinct isn’t to go to the internet, but instead call my mom and ask what to do, as I’m sure she does with her brother. My Swedish Ivy is a home grown sort.
#6
Week 6 Swedish Ivy Observations:
Over spring break I read a bit of Michael Pollan’s book Botany of Desire in which he discusses how humans have the conception that they’re the ones in power controlling “domesticated” plants. We pick the seeds, pull the weeds, add the fertilizer. But Pollan points out that this relationship could just as easily be viewed in the reverse. Plants have evolved and know what flavors, smells, and visuals will entice us. I thought about this within the context of my Swedish Ivy. Whenever its leaves start to yellow, or it gets leggy, or wilts (all symptoms that are visibly occurring in the photo from 3/8/19), I view it as less healthy and thus less attractive. And yet the plant has developed so that when it’s not as happy it looks less attractive to me as a way of getting me to care for it better.
I think this is easily visible from the photos I took between 3/8/19 and 3/19/19. When my mom first helped me pot the cutting she’d given and developed roots for me at the beginning of college, she told me it was an easy plant to take care of, didn’t need much care, and generally liked being independent from its grower. Within that first week of March I hovered too much over the Swedish Ivy, watering it perhaps three times the instant the soil dried out. I wasn’t caring for the plant properly. But once gone for a week, letting it grow away from my eagle eye, the Swedish Ivy thrived once more, fully in control.
#7
Week 7 Observations:
Through close examination of my plant this week, I’ve noticed small brown spots on the leaves central to the photo. They look almost like healed scratches or scars. At first I didn’t pay them much attention, but I started to wonder how those marks got there. The Swedish Ivy is exposed to hardly any harsh or varying conditions, which — for the most part — produces plump green leaves that bring words like “delicate” and “soft” to mind. So what is the story behind the marks? Did I rotate the plant a while ago and that leaf scratched against the sharp window’s edge? Did I somehow water too viciously? These options seemed doubtful. And then it occurred to me. Bugs!
Now, despite viewing myself semi-pretentiously as an above average person in the art of plant-caring, I pretty much have no real understanding or idea of what bug induced damage on a plant looks like, but my reaction to my eureka moment was an interesting one. At first I was annoyed and bummed: I’d somehow failed this indoor plant, failed to protect it fully from the “outside world” and to keep it healthy. But then I started viewing the (potential) bug attack as an informative life experience my plant had gone through. Maybe now the plant has learned something new, grown in some other way invisible to me. That made me realize that there is so much more happening in and to this plant than I will ever fully know. I will only ever witness a fraction of its total experience.
#8
Week 8 Observations:
As the air warms gradually and outdoor plants start to come alive just on the other side of my window, I’ve been growing increasingly concerned about the discoloration on one side of the Swedish Ivy. For all of these past weeks, I’ve been chalking it up to close contact with a faulty window bringing in the winter’s air. But as the nights start to drift away from freezing temperatures into the mid-50s, I’m starting to think I’ve been wrong, that maybe I’ve missed some other signs that the plant has been trying to tell me to give me a clue. I’ve noticed the pale, unhealthy looking leaves have purple veins and purple undersides that look like they were shaded-in comic-book style (consistent small dots of purple). But on the opposite, healthier looking side, I’ve noticed some almost equally as pale leaves as well. I’m scratching my head to figure out what’s up.
The hardest thing about taking care of a plant is learning to read its language. There are so many signs that this Swedish Ivy is giving me, and yet I only know how to interpret a few at best. I’ve previously discussed how in times of confusion and need I’ve turned to my mom, but she, too, isn’t completely fluent. This is the best way I can conceptualize growing plants (or more like helping plants grow), and like learning any language it takes lots of time, effort, and practice.
#9
Week 9 Observations:
Ever since the spring equinox, everything with roots, stems, or branches has taken off. Outside this is more obvious. Flowers are in bloom everywhere on smaller bushes and trees, and the larger oaks and maples are sure to follow suit with a few more warm humid days. I’ve noticed with close observation that inside, too, the plants I help care for have pushed forward new growth more vigorously than I’ve seen at any point throughout the winter. With warmer days, sunnier skies, and visions of floral colors all around, I believe us college students also have new-found energy aiding us in the final push before summer. The plants seem to reflect the attitudes of the college students with whom they coexist—or perhaps we reflect the attitudes of the plants.
And yet the Swedish Ivy has grown paler and paler, one side now fully tinged yellow and purple. In some ways this foliage is quite beautiful. The leaves’ topsides are pale yellow, the undersides a deep raspberry purple. I find it interesting that these are complimentary colors. It makes me think about the violets and daffodils outside clustered brightly together thriving in the spring weather.
In previous posts I’ve talked about how this different coloration is a sign of unhealthiness, and yet I can’t help but wonder if this is just what happens to Swedish Ivies in the springtime. Like their outdoor counterparts, are they simply flashing some color in greeting of the growing season? I can’t remember what was happening last year to this plant. I don’t think I was paying attention then.
#10
Week 10 Observations:
I’ve been meaning to take a cutting from the Swedish Ivy for a while now. Today, before taking my last photo, I chose to cut off a vine from the yellow and purple side of the plant and place it in water to help it start the rooting process. It makes me think about how much growth this plant has gone through. Not just the growth captured in images throughout these past 10 weeks, but everything it has undergone since my mother gave me it as a clipping before college. And now today it gives a piece of itself to further this growth in some other pot, on some other windowsill. I wonder if the help we’ve given each other has been equal.
In the top left corner of the 4/16/19 photo you can see the blank space that once used to be filled with the vine I’ve snipped off. I find it interesting that this particular vine has only ever been in a small corner of the photos, always in the background and out of focus, and yet something is so clearly different about the plant. It reminds me about how I used to look at plants before I started helping them grow and bringing them into my own living space (and especially before the start of this assignment). They were mainly part of the background of the more interesting human life that surrounded them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to passively noticing plants like that again.
