Freshman year of college my mom gave me a tiny cactus to make my dorm room feel a little more homey. By the spring semester of that year, the cactus was dead and I had pretty much given up on any chance that I could care for plants of any kind.
I mean,
who kills a cactus?! This girl.
Fast forward nearly 10 years (woof) and you will find 15 different plants living in my apartment and 1 outside. To be fair, a bunch of those plants were gifted to me, but nevertheless, I have definitely become a full-fledge plant lady. What started with caring for a few succulents in grad school (you may remember
THIS POST) has slowly blossomed and taught me a few lessons along the way.
[Ironically, the plant collection really took off after I wrote a
post for Blessed is She detailing my struggle with keeping foliage alive. At that point in time I had only managed to care for 1.5 succulents and my spider plant who miraculously survived 3+ drops from the top of the refrigerator curtesy of Zelie.]
Try Try Again
Cheesy and cliche, but so true and so important to remember.
I felt SO embarrassed after killing my cactus in college and had pretty much given up on ever having a garden. Had I not inherited a bunch of succulents when I moved into my apartment in California, I probably would have never tried again - seriously though.
But you can't learn if you don't try. So if you are sitting there thinking that you are not made for plant care even though the idea of it excites you, take a chance friend! If I can do it, you can do it!
The same philosophy should be applied when working on anything new skill. You've got this!
Google is Your Friend
(But you have to know what you need to find.)
My pothos plant's leaves were turning a gross brown color that clearly signified something was wrong. The only problem was, I didn't know what the issue was. I thought maybe it was getting too much sun - it wasn't. Or perhaps it needed more water - it didn't. In fact, it turned out to be the exact opposite. I was overwatering it and probably not giving it enough sunlight. Classic.
The only way I found this out was by Googling like crazy for the information I needed, which wasn't as easy as it sounds. I found pages and pages on how to care for a pothos or how pretty grown ones look in hanging pots or why you should get one for your home, but that didn't really help me. I didn't need the pictures of thriving plants. I needed pictures of dying ones with notes on what exactly was killing the plant and if it was possibly to bring it back. My learning style is very visual and rather than assume the words describing overwatering matched my plant, I needed to see it.
Thankfully just about everything you could ever need is on the internet, sometimes you just need to know specifically what it is you are looking for.
It's Not Dead Yet
I moved from "easy" house plants to a trickier (for me) outdoor plant this summer. It required a lot more watering and a lot more pruning. While I was away with students, I had M watch the apartment and care for the plants and Z. He did so well with all of them... except my verbenas. 90% of them were gone when I came home and there was a lot of dead plant to cut away. I tended to it, but was pretty sure it was pointless. Slowly the leaves regained their dark green hue and even grew fuller in the pot, but there were still no blooms to be seen.
At that point, I was ready to toss the thing. Sure it was nice that it was technically growing, but I really didn't need a flowerless, needy plant that couldn't grow back the following year anyway. So, I dialed my on-call gardener (aka Mom) and told her I had met my match. She listened patiently as I described what it looked like and then told me to give it another few days because the flowers just might start to come back.
I kid you not, the next day little specs of blue started showing up and two days later there were bunches of little flowers soaking in the sunshine.
Similar to the above lesson of trying again, don't fool yourself into thinking there's no use trying. Mistakes can be mended. New growth can occur. And lucky for us, our growth is always possible by the grace of God, when sometimes plants are actually dead (please note aforementioned cactus).
Don't Discount The Little Things
The verbenas were not the only plants currently in my apartment that I was sure were goners. From the pothos dying a slow, hydrated death, to my succulents being ripped from their soil by a bratty feline, I'm pretty sure I've been convinced every plant I own, with the exception of a weird tree-ish plant from Ikea (the technical term, ladies and gents) was dead at one point in time.
But when my mom came to visit in June, she pointed out a very important feature on a plant I was ready to toss in the garbage - baby leaves. There were tiny little leaves sprouting from the end of its vines!
Sure the plant had seen better days and the leaves that didn't quite reach the light of the window were wilting, but there was still so much going on internally that I couldn't see. It is alive and it is growing!
And by some strange miracle, this seems to be a trend with all of my plants. It hasn't happened overnight, and it hasn't happened without error, but my once deadly, anything-but-green thumb is doing alright with it's new garden. And all of this plant care is definitely teaching me lessons on the importance of resiliency, asking for help, and searching for small pieces of growth when it seems like all hope is lost.
Any other plant ladies/gents out there? I'm curious what advice you have for how to best care for your gardens and would love any book/blog suggestions for continued learning.
Peace,
Sarah
