Plants

About the time I stopped blogging at the end of 2020 I started getting into something new for me: plants. When I was younger, I had been tasked with watering my grandmother’s plants while she was out of town and I remember her red roses she usually had, which I always loved. I also really loved climbing trees as a kid but when it came to plants, I mainly saw them as background objects and never cared about taking care of any of my own. I did not see the point I guess or I didn’t see what you got out of it. Well, the pandemic changed a lot about me and this was one of them. I can now say I am a plant person. 

I decided to go the seed route because I never had before and thought that would be more fun. It is also way cheaper and I feel like you get more for your money. Watching them sprout gives you something to look forward to each day and I feel like I needed something to focus on after the crap show that 2020 turned out to be. Thankfully our local Lowes had a bunch of seeds to choose from. Also any fruit you frequently buy from the store and eat, you can germinate and plant those seeds. I actually decided to buy a pomegranate from the grocery store one year and then I got obsessed. After eating a pomegranate I decided to see what would happen if I germinated and planted a few of the seeds. I really did not think it would do anything. At all. I now have two pomegranate plants that are growing like crazy. It loves the dry heat and can't wait to see how it turns out. (10/21/23- I have added a picture of it at the bottom of the page, middle image)

I started out with cantaloupe, cactus, cilantro, passion flower and Amaranth in March 2021. I did not use anything fancy other than what you can find at your local home improvement retailer. The cantaloupe loved the heat so it did very well. I had no idea it was like that and I have always loved cantaloupe. We have these raised flowerbeds we built and a trellis on the side for it to vine up and it loved that. It grew so fast which makes sense seeing as it is a vine. Once it has fruit on it you have to be careful when it rains it does not get enlarged with water. It was so fun to watch the cantaloup grow. One day it was just lying on the ground so that is how we knew it was ready. We harvested one ‘loupe on July 2021- it was really good! Very juicy and sweet. Now I want to plant more!

I had my first morning glory bloom on August 16 2021. I have never been a morning person. I remember mornings usually being stressful and never fun, which carried over to my adult life. I found it unique that the morning glory flowers bloom in the morning and only lasts a day. When I spotted the first bloom it was a huge surprise and made my morning extra special. It took it a little while to vine up the trellis to bloom, but it was so worth it! It definitely needs to face the sun to bloom though. The blooms are usually the same color, depending on the variety of morning glory seeds you get. The first year I planted Blue Picotee and after that I ventured out a bit more. My personal favorite is this really pretty one called Milky Way- the blooms are huge! 

I also bought this strange plant called Purslane that had different blooms every day (can you see a pattern here?). Later I found out that the color of the flowers varies as time goes on - sometimes they were more yellow, sometimes pinker, and it LOVED the heat. Also, apparently it is edible as well and, unfortunately, the squirrels love to eat it all. It is actually in the succulent family, which might be why it re-grows so easily. There were other plants I got as well that the pollinators and hummingbirds loved. They worked really well as background props for taking pictures of my nails as well. I even saw a hummingbird sighting!

Growing plants from seeds taught me that, similar to humans, all plants grow at different rates and have different needs in order to thrive. It really is another lesson in trusting the process. Sometimes I get worried about the plants not doing as well as others but then I just wait a little longer and they turn out fine. I try to avoid human intervention if possible and let it do what it does naturally, with some limitations. Growing plants has taught me so much patience. Which is another thing you have to have in life. I am 34 and I feel like I am still figuring out who I am. It is scary. I went through many changes since 2020. I have made many mistakes along the way and I am afraid I will make more. But that is life and how you learn. I have had to learn patience with myself as well when growing plants.

I put a lot of time and energy into growing these 3 dahlias from bulbs that did not make it and I was trying not to let it get to me because I didn’t want to get frustrated with myself and rage quit. I have always wanted a lavender plant but it seems like I have the worst luck with it. Each time I get one it does not make it for some reason. There have been times in the summer or winter I forget to water my plants or leave them outside. It happens. So now when a plant dies, I try not to get too hard on myself so I continue doing it and don’t give up. I can try to figure out what maybe I did wrong and do better next time, but that is all I can do. I also don’t want to be too careless and start killing every plant either. It is all about balance. 

Sometimes plants can look really dead, like there is no way they will come back or be green ever again, and then the next thing you know you see some green or a single flower among the brown. Plants like to play around like that sometimes, just when you are about to give up on them. With some plants (or any mint plant) you don’t even have to water them and they keep coming back. The morning glories are a vine plant which grow like weeds so even when I miss a few days of watering it usually comes back. The purslane that the squirrels ate self-seeds very well so I am hoping it will sprout back up.

During the growing process it is important to remove any dead branches and leaves so energy can be used for new growth instead. This is similar to when we change and there are old parts of ourselves that we need to leave behind to make space for new. I feel like I need to take some time to do some pruning of my own. You can prune a plant to look a certain way or be a certain size for aesthetics, like Bonsai trees, but there is a huge health benefit to the plant, especially if it has flowers or fruit. Most of the time you can even use the trimmings to propagate a new plant! There are certain places to cut it for it to propagate though so don’t go crazy with the trimmers like I do sometimes.

After I started to get more into plants after having some of my own, I wanted something on my phone I could use to scan things I find while out in nature. I found this app called Seek by iNaturalist which I use to scan plants and animals to figure out what they are and it also generating data for science! I like that it is multi-purpose. It does not seem to work as well since I switched to Android but I still use it sometimes. Noticing more of the plants and nature around you helps you be more present and to get out of your head. Start getting curious about everything. I feel like in the past I have not asked enough questions about the world and am playing catch up. I love to learn, it just retaining everything I have an issue with!