Confessing contentment

I have been wanting to write down my mind since four days ago, but could not even begin to find the words to pave it all up. Then just this morning, one of my followers on my Facebook page- Jardinerong Sunog Blogs- sent me a message informing me that in just a few days, my followers have jumped from 495 to 710. The page was started two years and a month ago as the Facebook arm of this blog where I can write short pieces about plants. And as far as pages go, the following is tiny. Facebook has been pressuring me into boosting my posts so I can have more Likes and followers. I don't need those. They will come in their own time, I thought. Because I have always thought that gardening and all things that revolve around it, take time. Gardeners and the plants they nurture are children of time, and peace, and solitude.

At least that is what I thought it was. The global pandemic has spawned new gardeners, but many do not want time to take its course. Thus, the inner peace that gardening in silence brings has been compromised, drowned in the din of temptations and one-upmanship. In the avalanche of desire and social media stardom comes along with it the opportunists and influencers who paint unfamiliar pictures. One can argue that we have been ushered in a new Victorian era, but one should perhaps be reminded that whilst the Victorian was marked by a manic obsession with plants, it was also an age of discovery. Practically every plant being introduced was totally new to everybody, spurring a flurry of new species publications from some of the most eminent of botanists. In comparison, the current plantdemia is but a rehash of many plants which have been present in collections- some from since decades ago- and revalued to take advantage of the crop of 'new money' who have found solace and company with plants while tucked inside their homes. Plants costing more than five times their prices before the pandemic began to contaminate the senses. 'Ludicrousness' has become a word that describes itself as it became more and more obsolete. While it is true that demand drives market prices, there appears no logical explanation as to why or how a variegated Philodendron billieteae should command 300,000 PhP (6,112.86 USD at the time of this writing). No line can be toed anymore. There are now plants costing roughly the same as a car. Note that I said "costing", because 'value' is an ambiguous term enforced only by the sellers. Value depends largely on the beholder. Ordinary people from the countrysides, wanting a bite of the pie that the new game laid on the table, started heading out to the forests to uproot and cut everything that remotely calls to mind the most desirable plants in the market. Theft is not unheard of. In the city of Baguio, the most rapacious of the lot even stripped down the decades-old monsteras in private parks, selling even short pieces of aerial stems. The more callous of sellers began selling top cuts and cuttings and advertised these as "rooted cuttings", much to the dismay of their clients. Some have even punched holes on leaves of Epipremnum aureum to make the plants appear like variegated monsteras. The words 'ludicrousness', 'shame', and 'ethics' have each taken their own indefinite vacations. The world of gardening has been contaminated. Not that it has always been pure and genteel, but as if the fruit has fallen from the tree in Eden and down into a ravine, it has now descended to the deeper, darker depths, and yet fully aware of the possibilities it brings. 

Like everybody else, I have lists written in my mind of the plants I wanted to have, and these include- not surprisingly, anthuriums and philodendrons. But these two, along with monsteras, are currently the most briskly traded- and abused- plants in the plantdemic era. It's just so unfortunate on my part that the decision to expand what I have coincided with the unprecedented lunacy. I cannot and do not want to make the jump and dive in at this time. During my teaching years, I have deeply abhorred the wearing of uniforms lest I be identified outside the school premises as a teacher. It wasn't self-hate but a disdain of being identified with the rest, to be placed on the shelf, and to be labeled. I am a teacher because of the things I say and impart inside the classroom, not because of the uniform I wear. If people outside can't see that I am a teacher, then I am totally fine with that. I relish my invisibility and inner peace. And that is why I do not want to join the chaos. I do not want to be in the same company and be identified with those with little contentment, who see plants more as a commodity.

And contentment has become a quicksilver commodity. Contentment is unperturbed life. Contentment is family. Contentment is walking inside forests and not taking home whatever you fancy. Contentment is the confidence that you are contented with what you have. I only have a few philodendrons at home. These are climbing plants and I never wanted to cramp them up inside limited spaces and forcibly stunted in six-foot climbing poles. But the palm trees in my backyard have grown tall enough to accommodate climbers. Earlier this year, I tied my eight-foot-tall Renanthera philippinensis into one of these palms and a Philodendron billieteae may follow suit, then the potentially massive P. subincisum. It has taken years before I decided that the palms were ready. I told you I have time. Therefore, P. lupinum and P. verrucosum can wait. I killed my P. melanochrysum and P. gigas about a couple of years ago, and although both are readily available at the present, I am just too uncomfortable with the thought of satisfying the self-indulgent sellers of these currently overpriced species to even consider acquiring one. Those plants can wait. I still have my Pothos and rhaphidophoras to keep me company. So many people have been lured and driven into the belief that these plants are rare- Kaylie Ellen, I have you in my mind as I write this. If your 'rare' plant is readily available in nurseries, then for fuck's sake, it isn't rare. Even P. spiritus-sancti is slowly coming out of the 'rare' category, though the prices it currently commands is just about right for it, in my opinion. But blowing things out of proportion and calling a plant 'rare' when it clearly isn't only serves to drive up its prices and metastasized all the evils that it precipitated- including widespread dishonesty and poaching. Funny how P. 'Pink Princess' should be the same price as a decent motorbike and how utterly shameful it is to see top-cuts of the high-altitude Rhaphidophora monticola being peddled as if these were one of those indestructible hybrid dieffenbachias. The acquisition of a plant has shifted from an appreciation of its intrinsic value into a mere fad and social media, selfie-generation validation. And in case you think it is, price is not a gauge of a plant's attractiveness. Philodendron bipennifolium is certainly pricier than P. squamiferum, but I will be at a loss if you start claiming that the former is more attractive than the latter. 

So I'll wait out until the khamsin is extinguished. I have time. And even if I don't have much left, then it's immaterial because owning things, even plants, was never my priority. These days, I found myself reliving my love affair with succulents and will be immersing myself once again with aquatic plants. I may even rekindle the madness I had with orchids and the hoyas, two groups that were with me when I was still starting out my journey into plants. In the meantime, I am contented at looking at my Cryptocoryne. Let 'em eat overpriced plants.