Helping Friends while Hoarding Plants
Recently, to help a friend, my plant collection exploded to over 100 vines, tropicals, and succulents. All of which I carefully curated into my one-bedroom apartment. In the midst of a move, and a lengthy visit with her long-distance love, Whitney’s storage situation fell through. While she shuffled most of her things into a rental facility, her plants needed a temporary home…
Welcome to People’s Plants. An exploration of greenery through the lens of an indoor gardener. With these recent events, some of my friends say I’m flirting with hoarding. I think it’s more of a lifestyle. There is something soothing about surrounding yourself with things that grow. People’s Plants is a documentation of this passion, my own and others. Because I’m definitely not the only person expanding their plant collection.
Moving Large Amounts of Plants
Moving Whitney’s plants required two rental car trips stuffed with foliage. It was nippy but sunny outside, and we didn’t worry about exposure. We stacked spiky cacti, minty coloured succulents, and a blossoming Christmas cactus into boxes in the trunk. We crammed the bigger ones in the back, front, and on my lap. This included a healthy fiddle-leaf fig, an overgrown monstera, baskets of pathos with three-foot vines, snake plants, rubber trees, and one of those tall Yucca Cane Shrubs from IKEA. The key was to be careful but not too precious. I pushed down all worries about the sheer volume and the fact that I already owned over 60 plants.
It took four hours between the stair climbing and descending, lifting and rearranging, and shuffling from the old to the new home. Whit and I used to work at the Keg together. I would see her three to five times a week, and we’d cram into a corner with a Squirrel System, punching in food, talking. Lugging plants with Whitney reminded me of working a shift together. It reminded me of when we traveled through Panama and Ecuador — funded by our Christmas tips. We ended our day at Sargent Taco Shop and it was a real treat.
How to Style Over 100 Plants
I cleared a bookshelf intended for seating. The top of my fridge and cupboards became prime perches. I gave up one of my kitchen chairs and half the kitchen table. My apartment has shelving, and we loaded them up by staggering shorter plants in front of taller ones. The initial move was chaotic but being in this apartment came from chaos. My first time living alone after the end of a decade long relationship. While my siblings and some friends are getting married and growing families, making space for an expanded plant collection felt like the right move.
Returning home after tacos was shocking. We’d arranged enough to confirm that Whit’s plants could fit and walked away. I’m a lusty observer when it comes to minimalism. I like those monthly closet purges and the YouTube channel with the girl that sleeps in a hammock, and for about a month I did try to fold my shirts, underwear, and jeans like Marie Kondo. But I also like books, and spices, and all-natural soaps, and lots of art and plants. My actions never matched my desires, and I can no longer pass as even a wannabe minimalist. So I’m embracing it.
When I moved out of my old home, we decided my ex-partner would keep most of the furniture. I didn’t want to look at our stuff anymore, so I thrifted, and bought from friends, and found sales, and sometimes bought brand new. Through the process, there have been a few people who’ve correlated my star sign with the glee I’ve had in rebuilding a new home.
I don’t lead by astrology, but in high school, I did purchase Patty Greenall and Cat Javor’s book Taurus with my best friend (she bought Aries!).
“Their home is often a place of retreat and they adore the sensation of being surrounded by things they’ve earned and paid for themselves,” writes Greenall and Javor.
Ultimately, I approached the overgrown apartment by starting fresh. I pulled most of the plants down and rearranged the shit out of them. Like a life-size Tetris where all the blocks are green.
My apartment has a rectangular layout for the kitchen and living room. The couch is under the window and creates a tunnel vision effect when you sit in the centre and look forward. The first person to see the makeover was my mom. She was so surprised she told me to sit on the couch with her and not say anything. Our front and peripheral vision flooded with foliage. The walls were padded with terra cotta and the ceiling was bursting vines. Leafy, lush, expressive silhouettes packed into all nooks of our sightline. I looked at her and said it was perfect.
