Me and my first plants that never stood a chance
My mother was born with a green thumb. The woman could grow a 5 foot aloe plant in a pitch black basement. It must have skipped a generation, though, because I was born with a black thumb. I used to think it was because the plants could sense my desperation, but really I think I cared too much and knew too little.
The longest I ever had a plant was a bonsai tree that I had for a couple of years. But as it turned out, it actually died multiple times and my husband kept secretly replacing it with new ones because he knew how much I loved it.
Looking back, it's no surprise all my plants died. I was trying to grow them in pots with no drainage, located ten feet away from any window, in the middle of New Hampshire, without a grow light. I know having drainage might seem obvious to some people, but it wasn't to me. I think drainage and proper lighting were the most important changes I've made in my plant journey, but they definitely weren't the only ones.
When we moved to California earlier this year, I wanted to go all out on plants. So I bought what would become the first plant I ever had *actual* success with. Her name is Betty, and she is a beautiful monstera from facebook marketplace.
Me and Betty our first day together
I spent hours doing research, so afraid to kill her. But she was and still is thriving. I have her in front of a big window facing southeast and she gets watered with a fish fertilizer/water mix when the top few inches of soil are dry. She’s heavy, so I had to switch her to a pot that I could water without moving her. Now I just put a little cup under the pot to catch the excess water.
Betty now (4 months later)
After the first month of not killing Betty, I took my newfound confidence and bought a collection of plants from another person on facebook. Panic set in when I realized the collection was covered in bugs. Spider mites and earwigs crawling everywhere, and I'm sure they all had their eyes on Betty.
I brought all of the new plants outside in the 100 degree desert weather of SoCal (oof). I rinsed off the leaves and drenched the plants in water, hoping to flush the bugs out and off, then let them dry a bit and took them back in. The next day I saw another couple of bugs and decided I wouldn't feel comfortable until I did a full repot. I bought a premade potting mix from the store and blasted the plants clean from root to tip. I had never repotted anything and these plants had already been through a lot. I expected all of them to die. And a couple of them did. Even the survivors lost leaves. But the ones that made it are now stable and putting out new leaves.
The once bug-covered plants, now in healing mode
When I got a few new monsteras that I realized had bugs, I tried the same thing. It didn't go as well. The premade potting mix at the store was dense and staying wet for way too long and the leaves were starting to yellow. At first I thought it was just shock from repotting but when it didn't get better I repotted AGAIN (these poor plants went through so much) with a 1-1-1 ratio of coco coir, orchid bark, and perlite. This time I also made sure to not plant them so deep.
But the leaves continued to yellow and I was stuck. They had sunlight. They had the right soil. The right amount of water. They weren't planted too deep. What was the problem???? It took me so long to find out you aren't supposed to be fertilizing immediately after repotting. So now the monsteras are trying to heal from the burned roots I gave them by trying so hard to help them thrive.
Now whenever I get a new plant, it goes right into quarantine. I put it in the tub where it is drenched with a mix of soap + water. Then I pop in some sticky bug traps and let it remain there until I'm confident there are no pests. If I’m still not sure it’s pest-free, I'll do a repot.
Recently, I decide to try my hand at growing Joshua Tree seeds. I had about 20 seeds so I tried different methods to test what worked best. Some went directly into pots, some outside, some inside, but the ones that thrived were the ones I wrapped in a damp paper towel and sealed in a plastic bag. The ones that sprouted were planted and put in different rooms with different types of light. Out of all of them, the only three that survived were the ones I planted in the same terracotta pot and put by a North-facing window.
One of them was growing faster than the other two. And I loved that little blade. It felt like a huge success that came against all odds. I was measuring it regularly and it was growing nearly half an inch a day!
Then one day I went to measure it only to realize my cat had eaten it. He doesn't care about leafy plants, but he's a sucker for any kind of grass. And to be fair, it did look like grass.
So I bought a new cat-proof plant stand and put my tiny trees on there. And to my surprise the munched-on Joshua tree was only half eaten. It actually continued to grow. But you can still see the clipped part at the top where a hungry cat gave into temptation.
Owning plants is a lot more messy than I initially thought. Both literally and emotionally. And even though I feel like I've learned so much since getting Betty, there is so much more that I don't know. I've messed up far more than I've succeeded.
I only learned this week that I've been trying to propagate my pothos all wrong. So now I'm doing a trial run of the new method. I also recently started a wall of plants in the kitchen. It looks unfinished, because it is. But someday I'll look back at the photo of it now and think, "I can't believe that's how this started.”
And sure, I could have pulled the yellow leaves off of the monsteras for the photos to really make it seem like my plants are all thriving (some people recommend cutting the yellow ones anyway). And I could exclude my poorly propagated pothos. But I felt keeping them in really shows just how much of an ongoing journey this is. I know I'm going to lose a plant here and there, but I also now know that each loss, repot, yellow leaf, or rotted root is going to teach me something. Even if it's just that I need to have a little more acceptance. As my plants continue to grow, so will I.
Last minute addition: While writing that last sentence, I got a text from my mom that one of the pumpkins she accidentally grew (she left one to die in her yard last year and it sprouted into a sea of new pumpkins) is 22 pounds. It’s remarkable.
