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.