I’ve been browsing around on “plantstagram” and, like with most social media, I have a love-hate relationship with it. It is inspring to see other people working with plants and loving plants as much as I do. I find it relaxing to see them watering or repotting their plants. But I also have to be mindful not to get too involved with all the millenials that think they are experts because they’ve been “collecting plants since the pandemic”. It seems I’ve been doing it wrong all those years (about 40 – I got my first plants when I was 12) that I’ve been dealing with house plants. I’m using the wrong soil, the wrong pots, I water them the wrong way, I stress them out by repotting them too early and who knows what else I’ve messed up all these years.
The most silly part of this is that I actually am intimidated by these girls (and a few boys).Or at least, I was.first.
(I do that often, being intimidated by 20- or 30-year olds and their infinite confidence in their limited knowledge. That’s stupid, I know… I am working on my own confidence – it’s part of the healing I need to do.)
But then I looked around and saw all those thriving greens around me. Even after being away from home for almost five months last summer, I only lost a few. Some were suffering, but I safed them. Maybe I am doing something right?
Yesterday I bought myself two new plants, at the supermarket. not to “add a special item to my collection”, but because I felt like it (we just expanded our porch and I need more plants to dress it up) and because they were cheap . I have this “rule” not to pay more than ANG 20 (about $ 12). These were even less.
I didn’t clean them, let alone quarantine them. I repotted them despite the fact that they weren’t rootbound yet, used standard potting soil and pots without holes. I did it all wrong again.
So what? I’m pretty sure they’ll survive. Or at least the croton (the reddish one) will. The other one was kind of suffering when I bought it, but I like a challenge, so we’ll see what happens next.
NOT A STATION 
“…being intimidated by 20- or 30-year olds and their infinite confidence in their limited knowledge.”
Ugh, I get that way too about things. They’re so cocky and sure of themselves though, that I end up wondering if I really don’t know anything after all. I mean, they were raised on the internet and we all know if you see it on the internet it has to be true. *snort*
Part of why I quit working, part of what fueled my mental decline leading up to quitting, was exactly that. I’d been in my job 30+ years but now all the new people coming in were young enough to be my kids. Even new supervisors were super young. Not only did they have know it all attitudes, but they also had no respect for the job and were only there for a paycheck. Pay no attention to the senior employees who can actually teach you something about the job, just be snotty and have tantrums and play on your phone all day. Hard to get your young coworkers to fall in line when your new supervisor is just as young.
Back to plants though, I never knew you were supposed to clean and quarantine new plants. I prefer pots with holes but I’ve used ones without and just put gravel in the bottom. Then again, plants in my care tend to live short, pitiful lives . . . LOL I’d like to have a lot of plants indoors but the cat makes sure that will never happen.
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Oh, I can understand how hard that must be in a workplace! I stopped working (for others) when I was 36, so I never really had that problem there. But everything else… It’s so silly. We should be very confident with our superior experience, but instead we let them make us feel miserable. As I said, I’m working on that. I don’t want to turn myself into one of those sour old women who think they know best, but I do want to be able to let it slide off my back.
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I try my best to not compare my self to others because it only leads to disappointment. I think social media is wonderful and gathers creatives together but the downside is the comparing and the need to compete.
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That’s so true! I try to be better at not comparing, but it’s part of my life long issues, even before internet. Working on it though 😉
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Don’t worry about me, I suck at gardening so I will NEVER tell you how to do it. LOL! And I won’t tell you any of the things you do are wrong, because they aren’t, they are your way of accomplishing the task, and as long as it works for you, why should I butt in! That’s why I was offended with the recent embroidery comments made about my label recently. I was letting it ding my confidence in the task I had performed. Until I realized, the label was perfectly fine as is, no reason to doubt my execution!
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LOL! Yes, no reason to doubt, but these people are so full of themselves, that it’s sometimes hard to stay confident.
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plants – i also care for my plants my own way . . . and often use pots with no holes – and put gravel in the bottom like deb (my mom taught me to do that). i am currently propagating some plants to give to maddie for her apartment – they will be planted in some sort of container with some sort of soil. 🙂
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Oh, that will be so nice for her to have! My first plants were descendants of my mom’s plants too. And I’m currently keeping my fingers crossed for some tiny baby’s of my dad’s succulents to make it. They were frozen in December because they were in our cabin and now they’re here in the tropics, so it’s been quite a rollercoaster for them, but they seem to be alright.
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