Alex Giardino: My Year of Overwatering

When Alex Giardino’s only son left for college, she found her empty nest rapidly filling up with plants. 

I think things are going to be ok with my house plants. But it’s been a long year for us.

When I say year, I mean academic year because things really started for me and my house plants in September 2022 when my only child went away to college. After dropping him off at his new dormitory, I returned home to four hardy house plants. Now, my son is wrapping up spring quarter, and I have 25.

I’m a single mom. With my child away, I sat bewildered, as empty-nesters sometimes do. All the quotidian things had shifted. I didn’t need Costco trips. Laundry took weeks, not days, to pile up. Driving to work, I started to reflect on all the moments and missteps of my parenting.

But it was the energy of caretaking that churned. That’s where the plants come in.

First, I bought just two at Home Depot: a stately bamboo palm and a lovely peace lily. Then I fell in love with a giant banana leaf plant. I gleefully drove it home, its fronds nearly blocking my view. Around Thanksgiving, I eyed a monstera obliqua, commonly called the Swiss cheese plant, which was so expensive, I had to save for it like a Christmas gift. Mid-winter, I brought home wispy ferns and dangling ivies, snake plants and succulents, fiddle-leaf figs, a prayer plant and a money tree.

I repotted. I tended. I trimmed. I staked. And I watered, my care-taking energy pouring forth.

But then gnats arrived, and some plant leaves turned soft and yellow. Others had brown spots. I fretted. I Googled for advice. I bought a plant app.

I discovered, to my despair, that I had overwatered. A lot.

I learned about each of my plants and their different needs. I realized my errors with each. I forgave myself for not doing it all right. I adjusted, and the house plants are thriving. Thankfully, so is my son.

With a Perspective, I’m Alex Giardino

Alex Giardino is the creator of an Oakland-based nonprofit. She’s also a writer, translator, college instructor and proud mom.