Dr. Greenthumb

It was after midnight when the ambulance pulled up in front of an apartment building in Hartford, Conn. The patient, only six months old, was tenderly carried down three flights by a pair of uniformed attendants. "Looks to me," said one, "like an intensive-care-unit case. Visiting hours are from 9 to 6."

Thus last week a pampered philodendron was placed on the road to recovery from root disease. The indoor plant, belonging to a childless couple, had been wilting, yellowing and defoliating. Worse, when its owners--they prefer the term parents--talked to it, the philodendron would not listen. They gave it fertilizer treats, bathed it with the sun lamp and, fearing insect infestation, sponged its leaves with Baby-Wipes dipped in Scotch. Finally, in despair, the philodendrophiles called Karl Robinson's Mother Nature Hospital. At last report, the plant was out of intensive care and listening again.

Plant Parenthood. Who cares? Scores of thousands of plant owners, from corporation chieftains with status-symbol Ficus executivus (vicepresidential fig) trees in their offices to the apartment dweller with a $30 Dracaena massangeana (dracaena). As a result, plant doctors (many with degrees in horticulture or agriculture) are as much in demand as pet vets. Drs. Greenthumbs charge an average $15 a housecall, $10 or so a day for plant sitting and as much as $50 to potty train a specimen needing more root space. Boston's Plant Parenthood even offers a vegetative version of Blue Cross-Blue Shield for green pets.

Some plant owners see their specialists on a regular basis, rather like the twice yearly dental checkup. In West Hollywood, Lynn and Joel Rapp, who run a plant store called Mother Earth, provide regular service to casual growers and chronically worried plantochondriacs alike, charging $35 and up for weekly sessions of care and feeding of a customer's indoor garden. The emphasis is on keeping a weather eye out for disease or what the Rapps call "preventive medicine." "Mealy bugs and scale are in the air like cold germs," they warn, "Every time you open your door or window, bang! Disease can strike."

While some sophisticated knowledge of botany is required, most of the plant doctors' cures consist of applying rudimentary good sense. Often they only have to keep overly zealous owners from asphyxiating their plants with overdoses of affection, most commonly in the form of too much water or fertilizer.

The plant doctors often benefit mightily from basic ignorance. A New York housewife recently called Horticulturalist Peter Dunlop wailing that there was a pink snake in her plant. Dunlop, incredulous, asked how long it was, three feet, two, one? It turned out to be an inchworm. Another New York housewife recently expended the last half-gallon of gas in the family car to rush her ailing plant to the nearest cactus clinic. "It's stopped growing," she cried, "and the leaves keep falling off. I've tried everything, from Mozart to peat moss. What am I doing wrong'" Replied the resident physician: "Nothing, madam, it's a plastic plant."

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