I'm a Plant Guy Now

I enjoy owning plants

I always thought that houseplants were for adults who hadn’t had children yet. I now know that houseplants are for everybody, including me. I’m a plant guy now, and this is the story of my journey.

Growing up, houseplants weren’t really a thing. You didn’t enter a friend’s house and find his living room overrun by vines. You found a couch, a stack of magazines, a television, and maybe a cable box if he was lucky. The only plants that ever dared enter my childhood home were flowers on Mother’s Day and Christmas trees around the holidays. We also brought dried palm leaves home from church every Palm Sunday. Sometimes those leaves got woven into crosses, but that’s a story for another time.

I left for college in 2005 and almost immediately started buying lavish, exotic, and very expensive houseplants for my dorm room. Sike! I never considered buying plants. I did, however, purchase a Clockwork Orange poster from the student union. Posters are made from paper, paper comes from trees, and trees are plants.

People I know started buying houseplants in the early 2010s, and by 2015, the trend had really kicked into overdrive. Suddenly, people who’d never shown interest in creatures besides themselves were drizzling water onto their stupid ferns.

I should mention that I became a father in 2015 and was in no place to engage with the plant world.

Earlier this year, I took baby steps toward beginning to explore the idea of potentially buying and maybe eventually caring for a plant. My mother-in-law gave my children an egg carton gardening kit, and we filled that dang carton with soil and shoved a bunch of seeds into the dirt and dutifully watered the seeds every day. Maybe a week later, sprouts appeared. Victory!

Well those sprouts grew into actual plants, so I repotted them in Chobani cups. I learned that that’s what probably killed them. Turns out, a planter should have holes in the bottom to allow water to pass through. I drowned my poor sprouts! I suck. But one did survive.

Look at this beautiful...hydrangea. Marigold? I don’t know what kind of plant it is, okay. But I do know that the day that little pink flower bloomed still ranks as one of the best days of my life. Obviously, I’m kidding. I did feel something inside of me, though, a vague fluttering in my soul that G—gle says might be joy.

Let’s look at my pride and joy from close up.

Gorgeous. And now from a different angle.

Wow. Really starting to appreciate this flower. One last time (from above).

Like I mentioned, not all of my plants survived. In fact, all but one died. That’s pretty bad. If you’re a doctor and all but one of your patients dies, you are not a very good doctor! Anyway, here I am with a cucumber plant that didn’t make it. I loved that cucumber plant.

Humbling, thinking I could coax a cucumber out of some dirt in an old Chobani cup. I didn’t even rinse out the crusty old yogurt. Pathetic. Maybe if I’d have used a Yoplait cup. Taller, more sugar, actually tastes good, etc.. Gardeners, I’d love to read your input. Please comment below.

I ended up buying a houseplant at Lowe’s, too. I didn’t have to grow it or anything. It’s called a succulent, I think, and it sure does suck. It just kinda sits there next to my records. Should I water it? Who knows. I once put it in our sunny window instead of on the dark record shelf. I’m a plant guy now.

Horrible. Maybe it’ll look cooler with a different filter. Hold on a sec.

Better!

So what’s next for me? Should I get into orchids like that weirdo from Twin Peaks? Should I buy a “grow light” and grow illegal plants such as magical mushrooms? Should I get into parakeets instead of houseplants? What should I do with my life, and does anybody know of any businesses that are hiring?