Plants are my babies

Being a vegetarian isn't easy. You must make appropriate changes to your everyday consumption with any dietary restrictions. In the case of vegetarianism , it means no meat. That's stating the obvious, but until you've stepped into the shoes of a vegetarian, it's difficult to fully realize how limiting that can be. Meat is the norm in so many cultures. With American food, it's near impossible to avoid. Imagine going to a restaurant, perusing the wide variety of the menu, and then realizing you'…

House plants. They're incredible decorations, a great way to breathe life into a living space, and the perfect impulse purchase. Depending on the plant, they're also a magnificent way to prove to yourself that you're bad at taking care of living things. Some people should stick to cacti and succulents. Whether you start with an ivy plant, spider plant, snake plant, pothos plant, or anything else under the sun, you'll find out quickly just how addicting house plants can be. I'm the proud caretak…

I admire green thumbs. Truly, I do. There's something about most people who are good with plants that just makes them seem more mature, more put together. Like they could maybe handle raising a family, or changing a tire. Then there are my friends who are good with plants. While their apartments may seem pristine, and their grow lights state of the art, some of them can barely afford or use their brain cells to feed themselves. They exist on Clif bars and ramen, while pouring their hard-earned…

Send her to the flower rental department

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Get growing

Raise your hand if a fern ruined your life

Look out, dog moms ! There's a new sheriff in town, and her baby is leafy and green. Houseplants have been a staple for generations, but they've had a real boom in popularity over the past few years, especially with younger generations on social media. While some people adopted a dog or picked up new artistic hobbies when the pandemic hit, the newly anointed plant moms and plant dads strapped on their gardening gloves and got to work: repotting, watering, and desperately hoping their plants did…

Growing up in the city my family did a lot of walking . You could probably call us professional pedestrians. The walks we took led us down tree-lined streets and along front yards that were overflowing with flora. Some homes had a few rose bushes or some simple geraniums. Others manicured their tiny lawns, adding tiny decorative trees within their gates, and multi-colored hydrangeas. My mother would always test us on Latin plant names, much to our chagrin. At the end of the day, we were raised…

People. They're awful. They're truly awful. But you know what isn't? Plants . Plants are known for making your house and garden look nicer. But did you know that plants can actually reduce a human's stress levels? And if you want to put a lush bunch of plants all over your office, tell your supervisor that they genuinely increase productivity and enhance one's attitude in the workplace. Even if many of you are already aware of the many scientific advantages of keeping plants, we could go on and…

There's something sexy about a person who is able to care for things. While many people would swoon over an individual responsible enough to care for a high-maintenance dog , or a slightly chiller cat, there are other beings that need tender love and affection to thrive. We're not talking about turtles, parakeets, or horses. We're talking about plants. As a city dweller, I'm not seeing many people walking their ferrets or pigs. And many of my peers aren't even permitted to have pets beyond fish…

Growing up in Brooklyn we did a lot of walking . That walking happened on tree-lined streets and along garden-filled blocks. Some homes just had planters of petunias and left it at that. Others manicured their tiny lawns, adding tiny Japanese maples within their gates, and prickling rose bushes that (if we were lucky) would bloom twice or even thrice a year. My mom would quiz us on plant names, and if we were lucky, we'd catch glimpses of exotic plants inside peoples solariums, or make a stop a…

Plant people are everywhere these days - especially the kind of people who revel in making their indoor spaces lush with green (or purple) plants both large and small. Some of my own friends have rooms so filled with vegetation that I come home with a couple sprigs of lord knows what in my hair or on my clothing. It seems like they need a bigger room to accommodate their green friends - or perhaps a whole ass greenhouse. Judging by the plant memes we've been seeing all over the internet, this c…

A massive amount of guilt is settling into my body as I write these words. It's true. I haven't watered my aloe in a very, very long time. And I don't think it's been getting much sun. I can see it now: crispy, crunchy, parched and depressed . This is why I'm not allowed to have nice things. Specifically plants. My apartment will never be one of those plant-filled havens we see so often on Instagram. I'll never be able to take care of a fiddle leaf fig or take selfies with shelves of carefully…

It's time to BeReal. Caring for p lants makes for a pretty good coping mechanism. Sure, it's gratifying to keep a thing, anything alive, but there are selfish reasons for flexing our green thumbs, too. After a couple rough years of social distancing and spending most of our time at home, many of us likely developed new hobbies (read: addictions) while twiddling our thumbs at home. For some people, that hobby was baking one million loaves of bread and gaining 10 pandemic pounds. For many of us,…