I’ll be honest, the only reason I ever went with my dad to run errands at Home Depot or Lowe’s is because I would get to browse the garden section while he did whatever men do in home improvement stores. From a young age, I was obsessed with the aesthetic of hanging plants, succulents and leaves growing over the edge of pots in tendrils, (but then again, what millenial girl wasn’t?) and I’ve got a Pinterest board entirely dedicated to the fantasy that is plant swarmed apartments and bathrooms turned into greenhouses. I wanted to start a plant family of my own.
My first plant was a succulent gifted to my mother, and I adopted it as my own. I followed the Internet’s instructions, watered it as needed, and placed it in the perfect spot. I was a model plant mom, yet the young plant I had taken under my wing began to rot under the stress of too much love and care. My second plant was a horror story as well (though it lasted much longer than my first adoptee), when I (accidentally) abandoned it for a few weeks to tan it up on some California beaches.
As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve got a black thumb. But I’m no quitter. I adopted another two succulents (Chester and Fer) a few months ago in the hopes that my first two plant deaths were just a hoax and not a result of my obvious lack of plant mom instinct.
And even though Chester and Fer are a success story so far, I browsed artificial plant aisle of my local Marshalls in case I have to resign myself to becoming a complete fake plant mom. My two plastic adoptees have found their place on my TV stand and I’m busy browsing Amazon for artificial trees to adorn the corners of my apartments because I’m not even going to test my luck at keeping plants that don’t fit in a tiny glass jar alive.
I’m still elated that Chester and Fer have decided not to quit on me just yet (knock on wood), and I’m determined to add a little more life to my apartment (artifical or not) and become the cliché millenial plant mom I know I can be.
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