coming back to my apartment yesterday, i noticed that the bamboo that i've been keeping is starting to yellow and curl at the leaf. inevitably, these stalks will die. when they do, the grand total of plant casualties in my room will be 5 stalks of bamboo and two houseplants.
this is slightly upsetting because bamboo is supposed to be one of the most resilient plants out there. it is also one of those plants that the environmentalists are constantly lauding for being a renewable resource. all you really need to do is give it some water every couple of weeks and watch it grow.
but they're dying again. the last set of bamboo i had, i had kept for a few years before the inner core of the body began to dry out. the pale green bamboo turned a sallow yellow but not before the trabecular mesh in the stalks began to hollow and chip off.
my mom tried to salvage that last set. she took three sad-looking plants back home to brooklyn with her and made sure they received just enough water, not too much and not too little. she dropped little pellets of plant food to where their roots were. she put them out in the sun but not for too long or if it was too bright. the secret, she says, to keeping bamboo beautiful is to give just enough of everything but never too much.
but they died too. the old roots were dying too fast and the new rootlets that sprouted became tangled and instead, strangled each other to death. the bamboo could not sustain itself and dried into very pale, fibrous husks. maybe, my mom told me, if the roots had not become so damaged it might have been better. but i killed from the root; i have never been able to say if i gave too much or too little.
and now my plants are probably going to die again. when my semester starts and i find myself studying at my desk for long stretches of time, i will have the added pleasure of watching and waiting for the bamboo's end. they will become brittle and lifeless and it will be my fault.
if they do die (which they probably will), i don't think i'll get any more plants. not for awhile at least.
