My twice-a-year plant migration is complete. All the tender greenery has been moved indoors and spots have been secured for each pot, including a fair number of mother-in-law’s-tongue plants.
With their slick, sword-like leaves, mother-in-law’s-tongue plants have been part of my life, well, forever. In fact, the plant has been part of my nearly 85-year-old father’s life always. Dad remembers his mother and his grandmother tending mother-in-law’s-tongue plants when he was a boy in Kansas.
“It’s always been around as long as I can remember,” he told me during our family Thanksgiving gathering.
I guess it’s an heirloom plant, handed down from generation to generation. The “mother plant” has been in my family for more than 85 years.
No one knows how my great-grandmother and grandmother first acquired the plant, which the internet tells me is native to western Africa. Dad suspects it arrived like virtually all houseplants of that time. Someone shared a cutting or a start of the plant. These were the years just after the Great Depression, he reminded me. No one was traveling from their Kansas farm to town to buy a houseplant.
When my dad’s family moved from the farm to town, the mother-in-law’s tongue went with them. Over the years, it was divided and shared with neighbors and friends. This is the way of plant people.
Time passed. My dad moved to St. Louis. After he married and settled, he visited my Aunt Marge, who was dividing her stash of mother-in-law’s-tongue plants. Dad brought home his start. It thrived.
The plant is easy to grow. It doesn’t require much light and doesn’t want much water. It grows vigorously. I’ve had more than one root-bound plant literally bust out of a plastic pot. If you don’t divide it, the plant suffers. So, I always have plants to share.
My dad is the plant person in his generation. My parents built an addition to their home, which we called the plant room. He and my stepmom recently built a new home, and a four-season room addition is being planned for a bit of extra room. To be honest, the new space is mostly for the plants.
After I grew up, moved out and got married, my optimistic father gave me my own mother-in-law’s-tongue plant. I killed it.
No problem. Dad had more.
Eventually, I became adult enough to keep a houseplant alive. My mother-in-law’s tongues were fruitful and multiplied.
Now, my grown children are adult enough to care for houseplants. They too will get their starts. I sent a root-bound pot home with my older son. He divided and repotted now healthy, happy plants, although he insists on being called a snake plant.
Perhaps he is the plant person in his generation. He recently texted me a photo of his “current favorite plant.” Even one of my “bonus kids” made a special trip to my house to pick up a plant to take back to her college dorm.
Recently, my cousin who lives in California visited us at our current home for the first time. As she and her husband drove up to my house, she knew immediately that she was at the right place. A pair of large pots filled with mother-in-law’s-tongue plants flank my front door. She remembers when we were children, and our grandmother’s front porch was decorated with a similar pair of large pots filled with mother-in-law’s tongues. Yes, my plants are the descendants of those plants.
When my cousin left for the airport, we dug a few starts from my front pots, wrapped them in plastic and tucked them in her checked bag. The plants arrived safely. I have photos of her babies securely in their new pots. My cousin shared a start of the plant with her younger daughter, who may be the keeper of plants for her family.
Family lore says the plant is called mother-in-law’s tongue (not snake plant, you hipsters) because the leaves are sharp, like the tongue of an unpleasant mother-in-law. But if you eat the plant, you will lose your voice. I’ve never been tempted to bite one of the sharp leaves, so I can’t confirm or deny this claim.
In my grandmother’s home, my dad recalls, the arrival of winter brought her annual plant migration. Small pots, cuttings and starts lined every windowsill, shelf and table that got even a hint of sunshine, all waiting for spring. The same thing happens at my father’s house, my house and now my son’s house.
Perhaps it’s genetic. A good number of pots in all these homes are filled with mother-in-law’s tongues.
Recently, I split and repotted a particularly full pot and put a few sprouts in a tiny pot. I brought it to the office and told my co-worker the story of my heirloom plant. She seemed interested, so I gave her the little start. I have more – many, many more at home.
I will continue to share. It seems my duty to see that this heirloom plant survives for future generations.
