Succulents

About three years ago a friend of mine moved house. Because he had no room for it, he gave me a small, grey succulent plant in one of those raffia style hanging baskets.

I am not a fan of succulents. I can’t really say why. They need no care and look interesting enough. Perhaps I don’t like them because they are, in a suburban garden, almost entirely useless. You can’t eat them, sit under them or use them for lawn. They seem an indulgence.

More than that. There is something about their fleshy juiciness that repels me. When they flower, they look like aliens. I have been known to talk to my plants, but if I spoke to a cactus I would suspect my sanity. They are not of my world.

I can’t connect with them. They don’t need me, and I don’t need them. Growing succulents is a bit like having a stick insect for a pet or a boring pen friend as a correspondent. It makes you wonder why you bother.

So, not wanting to offend my friend, I put the hanging basket containing his succulent down beside the yellow recycling wheelie bin in my front yard, and said I would find a proper place for it later.

There it stayed. I thought it would die, or at least sulk uselessly until I got up the will to kill it. I half hoped someone would steal it. Instead, it thrived. The thick grey leaves grew larger.

Soon there were more of them flowing over the sides of the hanging basket.

Over winter, the basket disintegrated and now the damn thing is enormous. Every fortnight I extract the yellow bin from its tight spot between succulent and gate, and manoeuvre it out on the kerb for collection. Accidentally-on-purpose I run over a bit of the succulent. The leaves snap and squish in their crisp, liquidy fashion. It takes damage, dropping limbs and bleeding clear sap. I ram it with the wheelie bin. I trample on it. I wish it death. Yet within two days it has collected itself and, like a tiresome acquaintance who won’t take a hint, seems even happier to be in my life. Now it overruns a fair bit of my precious space, taking up room that could be occupied by coriander, sweetcorn or carrots. It has put out tall spindly flower heads, drooping pale orange bell-like appendages.

I admit to grudging admiration.

The question is, why don’t I uproot it, squish it and green-bin it? I suppose it seems a waste. Its home is next to the recycling bin, after all. Why should I waste a perfectly good plant, in a spot where not much else will grow? Last weekend, I found that this triffid-like thing has rooted in a number of places, making new plants in virgin soil.

I took out the secateurs and cut it back on the weekend. Normally one cuts back woody plants, the secateurs making satisfying decisive incisions, promoting healthy new growth. This thing was barely cuttable. It gave way under the blade, squishy and malleable, and it bled everywhere. I didn’t take it all away. I want to see what it will do. Each evening I look at its pale stumps, and imagine that it is looking back at me. What will it do? Die, or come back? I feel mean and guilty about my succulent. I don’t like the person it causes me to become. 

I am not sure I want it to die. I hate it, but it is mine.