Managing My Plant Addiction
By: Jillienne Buena (@cityfronds)
This past year, I topped out at 237 plants in my apartment. That’s...a lot. For me.
Now, I believe that “too many plants” is different for everyone, but when it starts to be difficult to properly care for them due to their sheer amount…that’s where I draw the line for myself now.
I don’t know what took hold of me, but I could not stop acquiring more and more plants. And I knew where all my dealers were sooo...
My baby step this month for living more sustainably is to manage my plant habit. It grew out of a good thing - wanting to fill my life with more green living things and come to a deeper understanding of how to care for them. But I started to notice a pile of plastic nursery pots growing in my kitchen. I was buying plants twice a week. I would come home to boxes of plants that I’ve ordered. I’d even met strangers on city sidewalks to buy their plant off them.
Plus all the waste that comes with plant collecting... oddly, most everything that helps you bring nature into your life is wrapped up in all kinds of packaging.
So how does this plant addict curb her enthusiasm for leafy green things? A key step is to dial in on how I can get them thriving in my space. This is my first winter with all these plants in my drafty, steam heated, prewar apartment. It’s really opened my eyes as to what it takes to bring the outdoors indoors. And sometimes, it just doesn’t work.
1. Don’t buy plants that won’t like living with you. Take a good hard look at your lifestyle and consider how many living things can fit in it. Plants don’t need socialization or walks like a corgi, but they still take time and attention. If I were still living a life of being out and about by 6am and not getting home till 11pm, I’d bet my plants would be miserable and slowly die. Especially since I have collected so many varied types with differing needs.
2. That being said - spend time with them. When you water your plants, take note of its weight in the pot and you will get familiar with what it feels like with the soil dried out vs fully watered. Stick your fingers in the soil to see if that plant even needs water. Look closely and search for any pests. Dust the leaves and you will start to notice what they feel like when they’re about to get droopy vs when they’re happy and plumped out. My trick for paying attention to my plants? I mounted the majority of them in WallyEcos above my bed. Now I can’t avoid noticing every little change when I wake to a wall of leaves. Plus with the plants clustered together, I created a humid microclimate for them. Also there’re less planters to water! Bonus!
3. See your space like a plant. Our green friends don’t experience light, humidity, or heat like we do. Going around my apartment with a light meter and placing temperature and humidity monitors around my home has helped my awareness greatly. My favorite is this monitor that records the high and low temp over 24 hours - telling me how that spot feels when I’m not there.
4. Look into the needs of a plant before buying it. I love ferns and went nuts buying different types. But there was no way my apartment could meet their humidity needs, even with a humidifier, and I was not home enough to water them as regularly as they needed. Needless to say, they were all composted except for my tough staghorn fern. Now I research the species before buying, imagine what kind of environment the plant thrives in, and see if I can recreate that in my home. If not, then I’ll just have to enjoy that species in botanical gardens and shops.
In the end, houseplants are not in their natural environment indoors so some will struggle and not survive. Even with all the care and grow lights and humidity, some will just give up the ghost. Root rot and pests can take out your plants no matter what you do.
Be brave with your decisions in saving your plants, because the final answer for saving that plant can be propagation.
There is something liberating about taking a pair of scissors to my plants so I can save a bit of it. Even if my plants are doing well, I’ve started taking cuttings to try and grow more. A sustainable way of getting more plants! And a means to share them with your plant community!
Do you have some practices to control your plant habit? Any tips for managing the work involved? Recommendations for places to buy more plants? (I swear, I would just browse. Really. ;-) )
Happy winter growing! Hug your plants for me!
