Surrounded

All around me, a relatively rare variety of angel wing begonia spreads her freckled leaves. Her leaves are large, with red undersides. When I’m lucky, she puts forth drooping bunches of pink flowers that close around yellow centers (and yes, these are female blooms, so she’s a she). 

She has a lot of sisters. Currently, in pots, there are five, with a start in a glass vase by the kitchen windows. These are all siblings, snapped off another when it became too stick-like, too stemmy. Like a nurse on a Civil War battlefield, I deem it overdue for a swift amputation and give it a good snap. 

There are too many of these plants around the house to be sentimental about it. Except, of course, I am. I could discard the trimmings, but it’s so easy to pop them into water, and so satisfying when the roots form. This plant is skilled at survival.

The plant has held on for years.

In fact, it was the only plant that survived our house fire in 2005. On one of my many trips to wander stunned through the wreckage of my home, I found it on its side in the backyard, along with two not-so-lucky friends. I decided they weren’t going to make it, but the begonia might. I righted the pot, scooped it back in with some dirt, and took it to the motel where I was staying until they found us a rental.

I’ve studied internet pages to decide which variety I have. It’s possibly the “Angelica,” because the tips are white and the edges are frilled. Or they would be, if I took better care with them. But it’s kind of a wild kingdom over here. It’s entirely up to any plant to decide if it will thrive or die on my program of benign neglect. This variety, whatever it is, seems to like it.

I do have one of the more standard narrow-leafed varieties struggling to survive in another pot. My daughter’s mother-in-law gave it to me three years ago, and it’s never taken off like my own. It needs more dirt, I think, or fertilizer, or a different pot. Something. I just looked over at it and it’s forcing up new canes, a sign that it might make it after all. 

Its history

My own plant was a cutting given to me in the summer of 1982. My former husband and I were expectant parents-to-be attending Lamaze class. It was a big deal to be in a mixed-race couple in 1982. Would we be judged? Shunned? Worst of all, condescended to? We walked in and found two other couples just like us; Black dads, White Moms. Another dad was Columbian. The baby reunion was a darling, drooling little rainbow. 

Anyway, one of the moms gave me a cutting from her begonia. I’d never had a houseplant before, but I’d never had a baby before, either, and apparently they were going to let me bring one home from the hospital. So I decided to accept the plant, and give it a try. I dutifully potted it and watered it. When it survived, I thought our baby might survive, as well.

The plant and the baby are both 42 years old. She’s married, owns a home, probably has a start or two of this begonia in her dining room. 

That mother plant is right here.