The peace lily on my kitchen floor looks like it’s been on the losing side of combat. If there was a houseplant tribunal, I’d be brought up on charges of severe neglect through lack of watering. As the owner of eight plants, all in varying stages of slow death, I should be put on fertilizer duty and sentenced to community service in a greenhouse.

It’s not so much that I have a brown thumb as it is that I just don’t give a darn. I lack the plant conscience gene. I once asked my sister to babysit a pitiful plant covered in so much dust its leaves looked gray. I still remember her wide-eyed look. “Taaaanya…” was all she could muster as she held the plant at arm’s length. She lovingly wiped each leaf with a wet sponge, repotted, fertilized -- and refused to give it back. When we left our last duty station several years ago, I offered many of my bedraggled plants to our battalion commander’s wife who doted on them and nursed them back to health. Like a deadbeat parent, I sheepishly ask her how they are doing now and then.

Military folks and their houseplants fall into two categories: Those who give their plants away before each PCS move and those who claim their plants as dependents and move with them. These “military houseplant brats,” as I call them, are part of the family. Every few years they travel Grapes of Wrath-style with the rest of the family cross-country to a new duty station. During transit, they endure heatstroke, getting kicked over by moving men, sibling backseat fights and pets who use them as a litter box. One Army wife friend had to go to the health department to get special papers to bring her plants across California state lines. During overseas tours, many plant brats stay with their “grandparents” stateside for a few years.

Moving with plants is a lot of effort. But my mother, who has some 40-year-old plants that made many military moves with us, explained it well.

“You get attached to plants. Plants make a house a home. It’s a memory from your last house. They’re alive and need care. It nurtures the caring instinct.”

I queried military families about their houseplants and came across some remarkable “if the plants could talk” stories. One common theme, houseplant brats are as hardy as their military kin. If I were a headline writer I’d have plenty of material.

“Spider Plants Survive Car Accident; Month on Own in Parking Lot”

Yes, it’s true. During a move from Alabama to Missouri, Army wife Kristin Weber fell asleep at the wheel and totaled her truck. Her beloved spider plants that draped the altar on her wedding day were in the truck bed and survived not only the accident, but a month on their own at a repair shop in Tennessee. When Kristin’s husband retrieved the truck from Tennessee, she was “happily surprised to see that those spider plants and a small tree survived. All the other plants were dead.”

Fourteen years after their wedding day, the Webers -- and the spider plants -- are stationed in Minnesota on ROTC duty.

“Rubber Tree Thrives on Martinis”

Who would have thought? Longtime friends of my parents related a story about a rubber tree that changed ownership five times in a “change-of-plant ceremony,” complete with a martini toast ritual.

The plant changed hands as its owners reported for duty to such places as Germany and Vietnam before finally retiring to Seminole, Fla., where it lives today thriving from loving care or perhaps martini spillage.

“Thus ended the rubber tree plant odyssey as we know of it after a 45-year-history and five permanent changes of station and commands,” says Dick Morris, who with his wife, Jean, were the original owners. All I can say is, martinis, anyone?

“Plant Keeps Naval Career Afloat”

One Naval officer, who shall remain anonymous, has a lucky silver queen plant he’s had since his freshman year at the Naval Academy in 1981.

“As freshmen, they are not allowed to have any personal possessions, not even civilian clothes,” his wife explains. “The one thing they can have is a plant. Well, he hurried out and got one to have something in the room that was personal.”

Since then, the freshman grew into a Navy captain and the three-leaf sprout grew into a magnificent plant with dozens of leaves. Except for overseas assignments to Japan and deployments at sea, plant and sailor have been inseparable.

“My husband is extremely attached to this plant,” his wife says. “He feels that as long as the plant thrives and grows strong, so will his career.”

In fact, she still remembers the first time she “met the plant” after getting engaged in Charleston, S.C. Her first duty as a future Navy wife was to plant-sit during a six-month deployment. After 15 moves, “The plant has survived road trips, numerous cats chewing on it, being dumped upside-down on a move, and being re-potted when the dirt it was in had a fungus,” she said.

As they get ready to take command in Japan this summer, the plant will stay with the captain’s mother in Georgia.

“I have now separated it into two pots, one small plant and one large to have a back up,” the Navy wife said. “My mother-in-law wants to have her bases covered in case she is not the best plant-sitter.”

“Army Wife Breaks Tradition; Plant Thrives”

Some traditions are meant to be broken. When my friend Noel moved to Fort Bragg in 1999, her neighbor in the attached duplex was getting ready to move and came over one evening with a plant.

“She said that this plant had been in this particular set of duplexes for years, that it kept being passed from one family to the next as each one of them moved on,” Noel said. “Now, it was the sorriest looking plant I had seen in a long time -- scraggly, limp and wilted -- definitely lacking in TLC.”

Noel took the plant in. Repotted it. Fertilized it. Watered it regularly. And talked to it. If she could have hugged it, I’m sure she would have.

“By the time we were ready to leave four years later the plant was gorgeous -- huge and vibrant with glossy leaves,” Noel said. “I knew the plant was supposed to stay in the duplex, but I had invested a lot in that plant and had become very attached to it. So, I didn’t pass it to our neighbor. I kept the plant, and it has graced our home ever since.”

With so many military folks attached to their plants, I decided to contact plant guru Sue Walsh, the houseplant feature writer for www.Suite101.com and the gardening editor for www.Bellaonline.com.

Me: “Military families move every couple of years. Are there any
easy-to-transport plants that can survive U-Haul hell, messy minivans and
off-key renditions of ‘100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall?’”

Houseplant Sue: “Actually most houseplants will easily survive a few days in transit provided they are packed well. Water them, make sure to drain well, and pack. Use sturdy cardboard boxes and wrap each plant with newspaper to protect the foliage. Leave the top open so the plant can get air and light. Try taking
them with you in your vehicle rather than putting them in a U-Haul though, that
way you can keep an eye on them. And vehicles have better air circulation,
which is crucial for plant health. The only houseplant that truly hates to
be moved is the ficus. They react to moving by promptly and dramatically
dropping all their leaves.

Me: “Are you a purist, or are fake plants okay?”

Houseplant Sue: “While I definitely prefer live plants, I confess to owning a fake one or two. There is nothing wrong with them provided they look as realistic as possible and are kept clean -- silk flowers and plants are big dust magnets.”

Me: (feigning surprise)...