The Thriving Office Plant and Why it Unnerves Me

My office plant grows like a weed. I have heard tall tales of these kinds of plants growing tendrils that can wrap around the circumference of a whole room- and let me tell you- I am beginning to believe it. This plant is a total glutton in my east-facing office window and it is always ready for more water. It is now growing a tendril around my little succulent garden as though it means to cut off the sunlight from the poor little cacti as well.

Sometimes I can actually SEE it growing. I hear a sort of springing noise and look up and a new little leaf tendril is trembling like a newly born butterfly having popped out from a vine. I am always somewhat aghast as I think of plants growing as a kind of secret activity- something I can observe as an after effect but never in situ. It seems sacred and this brash office plant does it right in front of me.

In Tom Robbins' "Still Life with Woodpecker" he imagines what Seattle would look like if the invasive blackberry plants had full reign. I have always loved this illustration and whenever I am faced with a very invasive or proliferate plant (See Lauren vs. the Vines) I imagine the same thing. Long after we are gone these vines will cover everything we have done.

I think the only solution is to start trimming the long tendrils and starting them in new pots as cuttings. At the rate the thing grows my office will look like a jungle this time next year.