The previous tenants of my apartment left this houseplant behind for me. It didn’t always look like this. In fact, when I first inherited it, I wasn’t sure whether it was a real plant or a false one.
Fortunately, it is a very hardy plant, whatever it is, and it started putting out new leaves and bending toward the light. I kept it on the opposite side of the room from the window at first.
After a few months of that, I noticed that it was growing so I started rotating it, but by this point it was definitely leaning to one side. Alas, it never recovered and just kept bending and bending. Eventually I leaned it against the wall, next to the window. This did not help things, as it just kept sending out leaves toward the sun. Then one day I decided to go for a strategy of “tough love.” I rotated the plant 180 degrees away from the window. It more or less bent over so the top of the plant was touching the ground, to support the weight of the stalk.
Now the top of the stalk has sort of done a U-turn, and it’s sending leaves up toward the sun, as well as a brand-new little shoot out from the soil.
My houseplant is messed up.
