You Grow Girl! My Love Affair with Plants

This may probably come as a surprise to you if you don’t follow me on Instagram, but I’ve recently developed somewhat of an obsession for plants. If anyone had told me this time last year that I would be owning 25+ plants within a year’s time, I would probably laugh at them and walk away. But in all seriousness, I’ve somehow managed to acquire 20+ plants in the span of the last 3 months.

I don’t often show much of my home on the blog because there isn’t much to show-off—it’s small, and we are currently renting, so we don’t have the opportunity to upgrade and change things to our preferences. I live in a 600 sqft condo in Toronto, and try as I might, there isn’t enough space to hide all of mine, Peter’s, and Kobe’s belongings to ever make our space look ‘aesthetic’ enough for photos. The photos that you may infrequently see are often (and obviously) staged for a photoshoot, and behind the camera was most likely multiple piles of messes and things to be put away. So this is quite the leap out of my comfort zone to put together a post like this sharing my home for the sake of sharing my plants—which I hope you enjoy! But I digress, back to the important topic at matter, plants.

For some strange reason, a couple of months ago, I found someone in Toronto who was trading baby Monstera Deliciosa clippings on Bunz and figured ‘why not take a stab at caring for and raising this plant?‘. At the time I knew that I had quite the black thumb and didn’t want to spend too much money on a full grown plant just to have it die on me. While monsteras are quite the common plant and aren’t overly expensive, I knew that I would kick myself in the butt if I sunk $30 into a mature plant just to watch it deteriorate due to my neglect. I acquired my juvenile monstera (it was a tiny clipping with only 3 unfurled leaves, and 1 about to unfurl) and took the streetcar back home without any expectations.

Over the course of the next 2 weeks, I slowly observed the one leaf slowly unfurl and basked in the magic of watching a plant thrive under my care. I’m quite sure this is what kick-started my newfound plant obsession. The satisfaction of watching the plant grow surpassed my fear of killing plants and I began collecting plants with fervor. At that point, I had absolutely no business of bringing home new plants due to my poor track record in the past of successfully killing plenty of cacti, succulents, and air plants—I have now learned that I don’t enjoy those hardier type of plants, but prefer leafy greens. So instead I did my due diligence and researched specific plant care for each and every single type of plant that I had on my wish list before acquiring it. And to this day I’m still learning. I’ll probably kill quite a few more before I completely get the hang of it and it’s okay. It’s the learning process that matters the most.

By this point you’re probably wondering ‘what was the point of this post?‘ and to which I agree that that’s a fair question. This post in general is to more or less introduce a new vertical that I’ll be adding to my blog—plants. Although I openly share many plant updates, tips, tricks, and advice through my Instagram stories, I wanted a place where I could aggregate all of my advice together so that the knowledge could be easily shareable to everywhere.

And as I continue to evolve and grow, as will my blog—which will lead to the eventual addition of new topics and verticals as I discover new passions in my life. I hope that there are some readers who as just as passionate about plants as I am (or have newly become obsessed) and will also join me on this journey to a greener thumb. So what exactly can you expect of me? Well as a newfound plant mother, I’ll be documenting my plant babies as they grow, and tips and tricks that I learn along the way, along with some of my favourite finds in and around the GTA in hopes of sharing the best deals for plants if you’re looking for them!

But don’t worry, I’ll still be posting lots of travel, beauty, fashion, and lifestyle on here, there will just be the addition of some greenery here and there to brighten up your day a little bit! I hope you can join me on this journey to becoming a full-fledged plant mom, and to perhaps also be inspired to add some more greenery to your life. If you’re already plant obsessed, I’d also love to know which ones you have, and which ones you have yet to acquire from your wish list!