A Community Piece: Why We’re Plant Parents

Bringing nature indoors

We are wildly involved with the outdoors. We believe the planet; the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the ocean, and even the desert dirt all have something that leads us into a deeper understanding of life. We believe they have the ability to heal, to lead, to guide us, if we’re willing. We believe that our connection to these things are what keep us sane.

We bought our first plant together on our honeymoon. We road tripped across half the country to 13 national parks and to help make the car feel alive for those 10 hour days, we bought a little cactus and we named it spike. Spike traveled through all but one National Park and two states; the same day Josh nearly died of a heat stroke, spike burnt up in our car at 127 degrees.

We put him outside to cool him down and left him on top of the car. The last two days of our trip we noticed how ugly the car really was, how empty it felt. It sound’s dumb but spike falling off the top of the car helped us realize that while we may not live in a National Park, or on a scenic byway, we have the ability to change the beauty of everything we use, from our cars to our house, by taking a bit of nature and bringing it everywhere we go.

Our Plant Family Grows Together

We got home from our honeymoon and went to the plant shop. Over the course of the next 8 months we collected 17 plants and over that time we learned so much more about what they have to offer. Each morning we wake up and see that nourishment (or a lack of nourishment) has been resting in our home. We see emotion through the stature of a leaf, and we see the cycle of seasons. We understand that in each of these things we learn more about life; we learn the importance of listening, paying attention, and time. Plants need time to be taken care of, but they also need time apart, time of solitude, time without you watering, or feeding, or trimming, or propagating. Time to rest, to grow, and to be allowed to do what they feel they need to do.

Living Gifts

When we moved out and we took our plants, we gave most of them to Josh’s mom, and truly it was one of the biggest blessings. We watched her house come alive; dark corners lit up with plants, every table filled with life, even the porch looked more like a home than we’d ever seen it.

There is so much more to plants than a fun obsession of ours, they’re part of us. They keep us wild while we are sitting in our 300 sqft apartment. They remind us of where we are going, and they slow us down when need to take time for ourselves.

Also, they make our house look happy!