Complicated House Plant Energy

I have come to the conclusion that I am a house plant with complicated emotions. When I am feeling down, sunshine and water help me feel much better. The days where the sun is streaming in through my windows always have boosted my mood.

This last week I decided to change out the curtains in my bedroom. I went from semi opaque white curtains, to a set of sheer panels with yellow panels on the outsides. The day after I got them set up, I woke up to extra sunshine in my bedroom. The extra light made me feel brighter from the moment I opened my eyes.

Erza is also a big fan of the new curtains. She has always taken naps on my bed, but now she will firmly place herself in the sun puddles that stream through in the afternoons. My windows face west, so I get quite a bit of afternoon sunshine, and Erza is thrilled with this whole set up. I have also spoiled her a little bit and gotten a cat hammock that suction cups to the window so that she can look outside while she lays in the sun.

The added sunshine to my bedroom has been helping me feel brighter and more ready for the day. I also have the light that comes from the grow light in my bedroom, that has been placed to try and assist my plants. With a little bit of water added, courtesy of my bedside water bottle, I feel a boost in my overall mood by the time I am dressed and getting ready to face the world outside my bedroom door.

I have heard the comparison of wearing a fitness tracker and likening it to being a Tamagotchi. The little animal that you are trying your best to keep alive is you. I also think it would be wonderful if I could have a tracker for my plants. Either way, I feel like the comparison also applies to myself and my house plants. A little bit of water, and a decent amount of sunshine can do wonders.

Plant Babies

I am pretty proud to say that I have managed to keep a pineapple plant alive for ten whole months! Obviously I am the type of person that has to name her plants, so I have named her Penelope. I also have a snake plant named Genevieve. The snake plant came with a paper steak stuck in the pot that made it sound like she had already been named, so I just went with it. Penny and Gen have two very different set of needs, but they both live in my bedroom. I have had to create some contrast to try and give them both what they need to thrive.

Penny sits on top of a white cube cabinet near one of the windows. I have placed bamboo skewers around the main body of the plant, with cotton yarn to provide extra structure. Pineapples can be heavy fruit, so the skewers have helped the entire plant stand up straight. I also have a grow light shining on her. Since they are used to tropical environments, pineapples require quite a bit of sunshine. I live in Wisconsin, where it is currently cold and dreary looking outside. So the grow light helps me provide the much needed vitamin D that helps Penny stay strong.

Gen lives across the room, on top of a much shorter bookshelf. Snake plants prefer indirect sunlight. By being across the room from the two windows in my bedroom, Gen will not be scorched by any harsh rays that may manage to sneak in my windows. I personally think she likes the placement because the leaves are growing taller.

Due to a certain predator that lives in my room as well, AKA Erza the cat, I have chosen the spots for my plants to live very carefully. They are on top of furniture that Erza can’t access. She is very curious about the plants, obviously, but I have done my best to make sure that she knows that they are not chew toys, or something to be attacked. Thankfully, she has gotten the message and the plants don’t have to fear the micro panther. (Knock on wood!)

I have taken steps to try and track when I water the plants as well. A calendar on the wall features little water droplets that I have drawn on with blue marker, on the days that I have given them water. I don’t want to drown them, so I try and remember to check the soil beforehand, to see if they actually need it.

I get emotionally attached to these plants. I get excited when I see signs that they are healthy and growing. When one of them dies, I get sad for a little while. This attachment might be aided by the fact that I have taken to putting large googly eyes on the pot of the plant. That started mostly because it amuses me. It turned into something silly that made me smile for a moment when I saw it, and there needs to be more things like that in the world. Personally, I will always take pride in my plant babies and how well they are doing. I will enjoy them while they are around and do my best to take care of them.

Ultimately they bring me joy, and I find worth in the simple things that manage to accomplish making me smile. I hope you can find a small thing that makes you smile today.

Getting My Hands Dirty

Growing up I always loved going to green houses. My maternal Grandmother would tell me the names of the majority of the plants that we crossed by and would usually let me help pick out which bunch from the lot we would take home with us. Yearly trips to our local green houses has become a tradition. One that I still enjoy very much.

As I grew up I started to learn more about each type of plant and what conditions it would need to flourish. Now I have two plants that live in my room. They even have names. Apollo and Hephaestus. Apollo is a pathos plant, while Hephaestus is a small aloe. The names just made sense to me in a silly way. That same silly vibe might also be why I glued large googly eyes to the front of each of their pots. The green plant life that comes out of the pot has become hair for my silly little creatures.

Earlier this summer, when we were setting up our garden for the coming season, my grandma mentioned that our actions would have probably made her father very happy. There was three generations with their hands in the dirt and working with the very thing he had loved, plants. When my grandma was a little girl Grandpa Tom owned a greenhouse. He raised plants to sell and even grew produce for the local stores to sell in the summer time. Some of his time was spent out in the woods as a Naturalist working in the state park near his home. Nature and plants meant a great deal to him.

I never got to meet my Great Grandpa Tom, sadly. Stories that I have heard make me wish sometimes that I had been able to get to know him and learn about plants from him. He sounds like a very gentle soul that loved his girls and the natural world. So when I can get my hands in the dirt and work with plants I feel a connection to him and all that he loved.

Tonight I was watering the plants that my family has in our back yard and I couldn’t help but smile. Something as simple as watering the plants, tending to them, made me feel a profound connection. I would like to think that Grandpa Tom was looking down on me as I tended to the vegetables and feeling a sense of pride that his love for nature and all that it can produce has been handed down through the generations.

Creating natural beauty by working with dirt has always been something that I have enjoyed. I guess it is just an added bonus that it fosters a connection through many generations. Planting seeds and growing new life, bringing beauty to my little section of the world, will always make me smile.