They call me the plant lady. It’s a term of endearment. They mean well.

It began when I moved in last summer with more plants than moving boxes. Three tenants commented on it as I trudged up and down the stairs. “You can’t have too much oxygen,” I joked. A middle-aged couple carried pots up to the second floor on their way home.

Several months later, a large tub of bamboo and a lemon tree appeared on my small balcony. My immediate neighbors remarked on the burgeoning oasis. I just waved, a disembodied hand fluttering between the stalks. At Halloween, the kids in the building peered past me transfixed by the jungle in my living room.

“Sorry,” one parent said sheepishly. “I don’t think he’s ever seen so much outside inside before.” I gave the boy extra candy and shooed them on to the next apartment. I closed the door and slumped against it surveying the oppressive forest overtaking my small apartment. During the day, lush sunlight ricocheted off electric green leaves illuminating delicate flowers. At night, I retreated to my bedroom with its cool, dark north-facing windows where I could breathe in peace.

I gave people cuttings for birthdays, holidays, celebrations. I picked my way through the overgrown corners, pruning and splitting every couple of months. There were plenty of plants to go around, more than I could gift. I took to posting fliers on the community board trying to give cuttings away to anyone who wanted them.

A college film student who lived on the fourth floor approached me in the spring to find plants for his girlfriend’s birthday. He was dumbfounded by my apartment and asked for a tour.

“Do you have pets in here, too?” he asked as he slowly turned in a circle taking in the variety of leaves around him.

“Oh no, no animals. I’d like to have a big fish tank, but I really don’t have the time or space with all of this.” In vain I looked for some empty shelf space where I might put a tank, but I knew it didn’t exist.

He came back the next evening and asked if he could film my apartment for an assignment.

“Which was your first plant?”

I turned to a small table near the windows. “This Christmas cactus was my mom’s. I took it when she got sick and moved into assisted living.” The cactus bloomed crimson in winter, with a snowy touch at the center of each flower. I propagated it more than any other. He’d taken a small one for his girlfriend.

He moved through the apartment, pointing at plants that caught his eye.

“These few were from my grandma’s apartment. No one wanted them when she died.”

“The ficus? Yeah, it’s gotten big. I almost couldn’t get it into the moving truck this time. My friend Jeremy brought it to me when he moved to California. He didn’t have room in his car.”

“The spider plant came from my friend Samantha. She followed her boyfriend to the suburbs. His dog kept trying to eat it anyway.”

“Monstera? That came from my cousin. She left a lot behind when she took a teaching job overseas.”

“My elderly neighbor died last year, but she gave me these violets before she passed.”

“Aunt Melanie doesn’t remember to take care of her plants anymore.”

“Tom and Ellen decided to buy a van and travel.”

“Mari joined a Buddhist community and gave everything away.”

The film student looked up at me wide eyed. The camera continued to film. “You didn’t pick out a single one of these plants?” he asked quietly.

I looked around the teeming, verdant living room. Each plant had a name—not its own name, but the name of someone long gone. I inherited the things people couldn’t bring themselves to throw away. I turned back to him. “I guess I haven’t.”

The film student sent me the video at the end of the semester and thanked me. He’d gotten an A, and it was the most popular video in class. He called it “Dead Connections.”