Three little leaves

I have always liked plants, and over the years I have slowly filled my balcony with larger plants, flowering plants, and a few smaller ones inside the house. There is something about having plants around that makes a space feel more alive.

I already had smaller plants inside, but I wanted something bigger, something that could bring a little more green into the living room and still live without much sunlight. I spent quite some time looking at plants, reading about whether they could survive indoors, thinking about where I could keep one, and then postponing the decision. Finally, last Diwali, I decided to gift myself one.

It felt like a good way of buying something for myself without feeling guilty about consumerism. I was bringing home something living that I hoped would grow and become part of the room.

So, in November, after all that thinking and researching, a leafy fig plant finally arrived in my living room.

The person at the nursery told me to water it twice a week and not in between, so I followed the instructions. For the first three weeks, everything was fine, and whenever I sat on the couch, I could see its dark green leaves against the white wall, and the sight made me smile. It was exactly what I had imagined when I first started thinking about having a larger indoor plant.

Then December came, and the weather changed. For eight or ten days, we had mostly cloudy or drizzly weather, and the soil in the pot was not drying as it normally would. Slowly, I noticed that the leaves were beginning to turn brown, and some developed brown patches before eventually falling. I shared a photograph with the nursery, and they told me that the plant had been overwatered.

I knew I had not watered it more than they had told me to, but the weather had changed the conditions around the plant. The soil was staying wet for much longer, and perhaps the plant was receiving more moisture than it could handle.

Within a short time, most of the plant was covered with brown or brown-patched leaves, and it was surprisingly difficult for me to watch. Nobody else at home seemed particularly bothered by it, which was understandable because it was just a plant. But I found it difficult to look at the plant without feeling a little sad.

I decided to move it to the balcony and completely stopped watering it for some time. I wanted to give it some space before continuing to do what I had been doing. Now and then, I would go and look at it quietly, watching the brown leaves and the ones that had fallen.

I removed some of the wet topsoil and replaced it with drier soil, hoping it would help reduce the excess moisture in the pot. I was not sure whether it would work, but by then I had realised I had to observe the plant and respond to what I was seeing rather than follow a rule book.

Then, one day, I noticed something very small.

Near the base of the plant, while the rest of it was still filled with brown and brown-patched leaves, three tiny green leaves were trying to emerge. I cannot explain how happy those three little leaves made me.

They were so small compared to the rest of the plant, and yet they completely changed the way I looked at it. Until then, I had mostly been seeing what was wrong: the damaged leaves, the leaves that were falling, and the plant that no longer looked like the one I had brought home. Those three little leaves gave me something else to notice.

There was still life there.

I decided to give it more time. I added a little organic manure and changed my watering routine to once a week. One by one, the brown leaves fell, but I was no longer as worried because I could see the new leaves growing. They became bigger, and then I noticed another branch responding with fresh green shoots.

I started wiping the green leaves, trimming the brown parts, and paying closer attention to how the plant was responding. Slowly, the plant began to change. New leaves appeared, the brown ones disappeared, and eventually the plant was full of dark green leaves again.

I felt strangely proud of myself for not giving up on it.

The plant is now back in my living room, standing against the white wall just as I had imagined when I first bought it. I still water it only once a week, and I have learned that what a plant needs can change with the season, weather, and other changes.

The three tiny leaves that first gave me hope are now showing signs of ageing themselves. They are still there, but they are no longer the fresh little leaves that I first noticed, and I feel grateful to them.

They were the first sign that made me believe the plant could recover, and they changed the way I looked at everything else that was happening to it. They may not remain forever, but they have already played their part.

Looking back, I realise that this plant has already given me much more than the green corner I had imagined when I bought it.

It reminded me that growth is not always visible when we are looking for it, that recovery can be slow and uneven, and that sometimes the first signs of hope are so small that we could easily overlook them.

I am not sure whether I became so attached to this plant because I had wanted it for a long time, because it was inside my home where I saw it every day, or because I watched it come so close to losing all its leaves and then slowly return to life. Perhaps it was all of these things together.

And that is what I will remember most. Sometimes, when something looks like it’s struggling, we focus so much on what is being lost that we miss the small signs of what is still growing.

Maybe we just need to look a little closer.

–Anitha KC