Now that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has spilled his guts about his obsessions, it’s high time for those of us in the public eye to come clean. So, here’s my confession: I have had, and continue to have, multiple, simultaneous, meaningful relationships…with plants!
Now I know this is shocking, but it’s high time I ‘fessed up. I just can’t keep my eyes off an exotic beauty. I like to stroke smooth limbs and caress foliage of green. Sure, from time to time these encounters have left me scratched and hurting, but what else can you expect from an unruly succulent?
I remember one of my first affairs, with a young Aloe ferox. Oh, she was beautiful and delicate, and I thought I could care for her as she grew. But a few inches tall, she wasn’t hard to handle; her thorny spines were soft, and her succulent leaves were smooth and still unblemished by life. Fool that I was, I had no idea what a tiger she’d become!
Now a vigorous, eight-foot-tall 25-year-old, sultry Aloe ferox gives no quarter. Her once small white spines are now sharp blood-red recurved claws that grab and tear and cut promptly to the quick. Ah yes, how suddenly the innocence of youth is displaced by adult defenses! For a few years I’d confined her in a plastic container, but she would not be restrained; before long her quest for freedom split the pot and her roots dove deeply into the rich Sonoma soil. When at last I had to move her, she fought back and left me breathless and bleeding in the garden. Realizing her need for freedom was too great, I finally put her in the dirt and let her fully claim her space. She now obstructs the faucet for the hose, but Her Majesty’s exuberance rewards me in September when she sets aloft a three-foot flaming golden sword.
I confess: I am unfaithful. I have lust in my heart for a shapely Platycerium bifurcatum staghorn fern. I can’t resist her fleshy body, and who could ignore a clever plant that grows on a slab of wood? Not only that, but old “Platy” has developed such a firm and fulsome 20-year-old figure. Each spring she spreads out green curvaceous cheeks of red-veined shield leaves, immodestly disguising last year’s growth. Then, to top it off, she sends up stands of eight-point antlers three feet long; what a show off! How could I not be filled with desire?
The list is so very long; Philodendrum selloum, Dasylirion longissima, Echinocereus spacianus, and a few hundred more. Like Don Juan’s record of maidens loved, my menagerie spans the globe, the more exotic the more exciting. We are like old lovers, old friends. And despite my infidelity, there is no loud complaint. If they are not happy, they let me know with sullen silence, darkened moods and poor complexions. And as with all things born, from time to time an old friend dies with no goodbye. Ah, well. Many will outlive me; sometimes I wonder, will they find another so obsessed to take my place?
I am deeply attracted to unusual plants. My cactus guru, Richard Ward, who owns The Dry Garden Nursery in Oakland, fully enlightened me one day to my true nature. Taking my cue from Gavin, I am man enough to confess that Richard was right: I am a hortisexual.
