Why does the death of my fiddle-leaf fig hurt?

I thought it was just a houseplant. And yet, it left lessons in life, loss and hope.

- Danson Cheong

Over the past week, I watched as one of my houseplants died. It was the sudden slide of a steady decline that began about two months ago.

At first, the plant – a fiddle-leaf fig – started shedding a leaf or two every couple of days, and then as I puzzled over its ailments, I realised it was terminal when I found myself sweeping up more and more leaves every day.

I'm usually not sentimental about houseplants dying; after all, the term "houseplant" is a bit of a misnomer.

Before these botanical wonders made their way into homes and gardens, they were found in jungles and forests, growing under the sun and rain, and in the ground where roots are free to find their way to water and nutrients.

When cooped up in an HDB flat, and confined to a pot, sometimes plants just don't make it.

That being said, as I watched my fiddle-leaf fig die, I found myself falling into a funk.

My rational mind told me this was clearly not a pet. It did not even have a name.

So why was I feeling sad?

SIGNS OF TROUBLE

I never thought of myself as a "plant parent". I enjoyed home gardening because I liked how plants could spruce up a space. Few plants can do that as well as a fiddle-leaf fig.

Native to West Africa, fiddle-leaf figs get their name from their broad violin-shaped leaves.

They can grow to decent-sized trees – up to 12m tall when planted in the ground – but smaller versions are beloved by home gardeners like myself.

With their bushy foliage and tall, slender trunks, they have a sculptural quality, and make for a very charismatic statement plant.

If this sounds like effusive praise for what you might think is essentially a small bush, consider that The New York Times in 2016 called fiddle-leaf figs "the 'It' plant of the design world".