Plants!? Love, hate relationship. How do you feel about them?
Let’s talk live plants first. If my thumb could get any farther from Green it would! When I started my… lets call it my plant collection… I knew nothing about plants. My “vast” (notice the quotes) knowledge today stems from “the Googly” (Googly, this darn video my Mom was obsessed with, with a talking dog, yes a talking dog, he refers to Google as the Googly, so I can’t call it anything else now). Anywho, my vast knowledge (laughs again to herself) stems from the Googly (all I can see is the dog saying it) and an app called “picture this”.
So, how did it all begin…Josh was working at a client’s house and the clients father sent us home a plant, an easter cactus. When we first got the cactus, it was only one stem, today it takes up our entire side table, it is huge! I mean to be honest, I was worried about Josh doing future work for them, because he inevitably would be asked how the plant was doing (???) and I thought it was inevitable that I would somehow kill the poor thing in the upcoming week thus creating an awkward moment for Josh to have to answer with "my wife killed the plant you so thoughtfully gave us". Yes… I said one week… that’s how good my luck was with previous plants!
BUT….Josh was able to provide positive updates, that the cactus was growing and thriving. We saw our client eight years later and we laughed about this experience and how we still have the cactus today! From there I kept adding to the collection, after having tropical plants outside in the summer I brought them inside for the winter and never put them back out, thus needing to purchase more for outside the following year and the cycle continues. I am actually worried about this winter coming because I don’t know where I will be able to put all these plants!
Well then Covid hit and plants were the only “bonus” item I could purchase for a long time, so I added a few more. I say a few more, I think everytime I went to the grocery store I picked up another one and then when I didn’t have anymore space I started buying my Mom plants too! I now have over 15 plants in the house, but that will be more once fall hits and I bring the outdoor plants in. Soon, my rustic, farmhouse décor is going to change to jungle theme!
Tropical plants, in my limited experience are an excellent plant for someone with little plant experience. I water our plants once a week, on clean day so I don’t forget and fertilize once a month if I remember. Besides the cactus plants shedding their flowers, none of my other plants lose many leaves, so they don’t leave a mess in the house.
Our walls are painted white, so I wanted to add a pop of colour to our neutral pallet design and I found that plants were an excellent way to do this. I have many variations from tall plants to small and round, some with long vines, a variety of shapes and sizes. I have a few that I have put twinkle lights into as well, adding another “homey” effect.
So, for those of you that are like me and don’t have much experience my advice is to start small, grab a small cactus next time you go to the grocery store, see if you like it and build from there!
Now let’s talk fake plants. There is no shame in not having real plants in your home, for whatever your reason may be. So fake plants are another great option to add that hint of colour and nature you’re looking for. Ikea is my go-to for fake plants, in fact they look so real, that I have been known to water them when I am tending to my real plants. Ikea has an amazing selection of fake plants; I have flowers and small greenery plants from there that I love. I have also had good luck at Winners for fake plants. Of course, fake plants are maintenance free and provide a great look to a space!
There’s no right or wrong, real or fake, so choose what’s best for your lifestyle, but don’t let real plants intimidate you, give it a try, you could be like me and discover you can actually keep real plants alive for more than a month!
L & J
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