Hi Darling Ones,
I wouldn’t necessarily say I had a plant-buying problem in the deepest, darkest depths of the pre-vaccine COVID era. However, it was a weird obsession verging on problematic.
Sometimes I look back at all the time I spent reading about, looking at, and buying plants and think, what was that all about? Probably, I needed something that looked alive while I was feeling like death for so long. Or maybe it gave me something to do when I needed it. Who knows?
As I might have mentioned in these pages my urge to own all the plants abated as soon as I purchased by birthday tree. Even when Steven turned out to be a not-so-giant disappointment the urge did not return. I still read all the marketing emails from the plant places without one iota of desire to click buy now. I was kind of proud of myself.
Then last week I tripped into a sadness swamp and before I could get out of it I was the soon-to-be proud owner of two new plants.
The plants arrived yesterday. One is a teeny, adorable Lemon Cypress tree and the other is a hedgehog aloe. They are lovely and majestic and not at all disappointing. I am the disappointing one here. I feel bad about myself for buying more plants I don’t need in a time when I shouldn’t be spending money so frivolously (mortgage + new laptop = ouch). Hell, I can’t even keep all the ones I have alive. I’ve got a fern, a tradescantia nanouk, and a pilea peperomioides that are all dying despite my wishing and hoping and begging.
Aside: the worst thing about tending houseplants is that every problem you google comes down to either you are watering it too much or you are not watering it enough. Thanks for the fucking help houseplant experts.
So now not only am I in a funk, I’m in a spicy funk. The beating myself up for making a bad decision and disappointing myself is supplying the zing.
Bleh,
Jodi