Linda G Hill gives us our prompt of: 

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “contrast.” Use the word “contrast,” or talk about contrasting things. Enjoy!

My stream of consciousness today will be on contrasting houseplants and outdoors plants. Houseplants must live in containers. Sometimes they are grouped together in containers, like the sansevera (snake plants) that I have in a large pot, but most times houseplants each have their own home. They are planted in whatever mixture you or the store they came from have chosen to put them in. The amount of sunlight, water, and food are totally dependent upon the humans who take care of them. The temperature is whatever is chosen for the human not for the plant. Their feet/roots can become pinched in the pots and they have to tolerate it. They often struggle with neglect or from overwatering at the hands of their caretakers.

Outdoors plants are either placed in the ground by someone or just sprout somewhere. They are totally at the mercy of the elements, which are sun, rain, temperature, and source of nutrients. They are also a source of food and possible infestation by millions of insects that share the space with them, as well as larger creatures who might want to dine on them. Their roots can travel at will through the soil, depending on how loose or compacted it is, and frequently they play footsy with other plants that grow near them. Bigger plants, aka trees, depend on that root connection to communicate with each other, directly or via fungi that acts as the conduit between plants. Outdoor plants can grow as large as they want to, but at the same time, the humans who control their turf often will trim or prune bits off for various reasons.

Although it would seem that the life of a houseplant would be a better life, now that I know about these fungal communication pathways plants use to be part of a plant community, I think of my houseplants as lonely prisoners.

SoCS — contrast