Discard Like an Orchid!

Have you ever noticed the way an orchid discards old leaves? It's as if they have built in obsolescence!

Basically, the leaf base has a line across it which is barely noticeable all the time the leaf is alive, well and doing its job for the plant. However, as the leaf grows older and starts to grow brown, this line gradually becomes more noticeable. It slowly but surely cuts the old leaf off from the rest of the plant, staying there until the old leave can just separate from the body of the plant and drop off by itself. It leaves an already sealed and invulnerable 'wound' where the line was.

I've been keeping orchids for quite a long time, and have noticed this fascinating behaviour. If I see a brown leaf, I'll occasionally give it a gentle tug. For ages, nothing will come of the tug, until one day, the whole leaf just comes cleanly off in my fingers. It leaves behind a tidy base, all neat and pre-healed.

It's amazing. Presumably this is what's happening all around me in the autumn when the trees drop their leaves too … but I was never conscious of it until I kept orchids.

You may be at a time in your life when you're clearing out relationships that no longer serve you, or perhaps you're making other significant changes. I put it to you that discarding like an orchid is a jolly good way of going about it! Let it stay in situ as it gradually dies away. Stop taking from it, stop feeding it. You can adjust, the person or thing you're discarding can adjust, and when the time comes, it can happen naturally with no damage done. The discarded leaf can become your compost to feed new growth.