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My Gardening Journey
I am a proud indoor gardener. My house is alive.
I have flowers, fruit trees, long vines, and a tall cactus that call my house home. I’ve spent the last several years watering, trimming, fertilizing, harvesting, and cultivating the perfect urban jungle. Currently, the humidity in my living room is 47%, and the temperature is 73 degrees. The window shades are up, and my plants are soaked in sunlight. They are loved. In exchange, I get the regular dopamine hit of a job well done. Every new leaf is a grateful wink, every flower a thank you, every new bud or blossom a pat on the back.
When I first started gardening, I started plants from seeds exclusively. You cannot convince me that a seedling isn’t a miracle. It’s truly magic. You place a seed in soil, you add a little moisture, and then you wait. From the ground comes a green sliver of life with unimaginable potential. How does it know when to wake up and begin germination? How does it know which direction to grow? There’s no light below the soil. A seed doesn’t have a central nervous system saying, “It’s go time.” In the wild, birds and mammals eat, digest, and evacuate seeds miles away from where they grew, and yet through that muck and trauma, those miraculous little seeds still find a way to grow. For every forest and every salad, we have seeds to thank. They are the embodiment of potential.
For years, my parade of plants thrived. Season after season, my little urban garden bloomed, fruited, dropped leaves, grew leaves, and was the picture of vitality. I plucked peppers and eggplants. Orchids bloomed. Everyone was happy. I genuinely thought I had a grip on this garden thing. I was a good gardener.
I was wrong. I had no idea how wrong I was.
In my naivete, I offered to take a plant in from a neighbor to perform some much-needed first aid. When the Swiss cheese plant arrived, it showed classic signs of underwatering. The leaves were yellow and drooping. There were a bit of white fuzz and some small brown bumps on the stems and leaves, as well, but I didn’t pay them too much mind. I knew this plant needed water, some fresh soil, and a few weeks under a grow light.
Several days after I took the ailing Swiss cheese plant into care, I noticed small brown bumps on the trunk of my citrus trees. After the bumps, I noticed trails of sap and white fuzz on their leaves and stems. In wanting to help a neighbor, I unwittingly introduced pests into my home. Our troubled visitor was a Trojan horse. I quickly learned I had a full-scale scale invasion. That is not a typo. The small brown bumps and clusters of fuzz are minuscule insects known as scale. Those unassuming brown-and-white nodules on my plants were sinister. They were pests. They were parasites.
Scale insects are my greatest enemy. I think about them while I’m at work. I think about them while I watch TV. I’m writing about them now. They are, by far, the most formidable adversary I’ve dealt with on my gardening journey. These unassuming little bumps have wreaked havoc on my psychological safety and the physical well-being of my garden. Unchecked, these little monsters anchor on the leaves, stems, and bark of my beloved plants and suck the life out of them.
What makes these pests so formidable? They have an external waxy coating that leaves them unfazed by solutions that wreak havoc on less armored pests. They are the Teflon-coated enemy. I tried every remedy available. They remain. The only way to defeat them is manual removal. Now, I inspect every stem, branch, and leaf in this home with the precision of a watchmaker. One by one, the scale insects are removed. It’s the only way.
These invaders will not win. My hobby has transformed. I used to garden. Gardening was gentle. It was affirming. It was peaceful. Now, my hobby is defeating scale.
Reader, despite my struggles with scale, I encourage you to garden. I encourage you to love your plants and see the potential in each of them. Care for them. Cherish them. Hold them tight. When they are attacked, fight for them. Do not get weary of the fight. The joy you get from gardening is worth everything.
You can find David Morris on Instagram: @davesplantparade
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