For those of you that don’t know, a large portion of my at-home COVID quarantining has been spent redecorating & repairing my home. This is partially due to the fact I want to sell it & move closer to town (I live out in BFE) but mostly to do with the fact that I haven’t redecorated my home since I was in college. She needed a serious update. Aside from new paintings, a new couch, new comforter, wood flooring, rugs, etc., I’ve also begun trying my hand at plant parenting, something I’m very much not good at.
If you know my mother you’ll know that she was blessed with a green thumb & then some, it’s truly more of a green hand at this point. That trait is apparently not genetic as both my sister & I can attest. That being said I wanted to add a little more green into my redecorating than I’d had before. The only problem is my house is shady all day with the exception of the very end of the day when the setting sun blares through the few west facing windows I have. I also have animals that like to get into everything; two mischievous cats & a golden retriever puppy that eats anything he can get his mouth around. (Harvey, my older golden doesn’t bother anything, he’s the goodest boy.) So I had to be very strategic when going about my plant buying.
I needed:
Something that likes low light
Something that’s low maintenance
Something that won’t harm my pets when they eventually eat part or all of it
So armed with these three basic requirements & my extreme lack of knowledge when it comes to plant care Evan & I headed to Lowe’s.
I know I should have gone to some mom & pop but I didn’t, I’ll do better next time I swear.
Anyway.
We entered the plant section of Lowe’s & began scanning the tags of each plant & the internet for options that met the above criteria when we were approached by a young, brown haired woman in a red vest. She was about 5’6'“ & was vibing. And when I say vibing, I mean this lady was high AF!!! Enter the head of the plant department. I.E. this woman. She shot us a sluggish smile before asking if we needed any assistance. We did. So we asked.
Our first stop on the tour de plant was the peace lilies. It was clear from the moment she walked us to them that this woman adored her some peace lilies. She stood there with us rattling off fact after fact about peace lilies; how easy they were to maintain, how much they thrive in the shade….she failed to mention that lilies of any kind in your home are toxic to both cats & dogs…..don’t worry, I didn’t buy one. We move on from the peace lilies & she brings us over to these squatty little palm trees with prickly trunks. She was not a fan. Her love for the peace lily did not extend to this perky little palm. Why? Because no one buys them apparently so her job as head of the plant department is to arrange them in size order; older, tall ones in the back, newer, small ones up front. A simple enough task. However, since they never sell, according to her, she has to move them all the time to make room for the ones they get in & apparently they scratch your arms up real bad.
Dissuading us from purchasing this palm that she also deemed “boring” she pondered a moment before becoming filled with excitement over her next choice in plant!……The peace lily. That’s right, right after showing us the peace lilies & stepping away to show us a palm it had completely escaped her altered mind that she had already shown us the peace lilies.
“OH! Have I shown you the peace lilies?!” she exclaimed as she moved between us back towards their pallet. Before a word could be said in protest she had begun her speal about the lilies once again. This happened, & I kid you not, three. more. times! She’d show us a plant, show us the lilies, show us a plant, show us the lilies, & on & on it went.
Finally I interjected, thanking her for her assistance & picked out a few of the other, smaller plants she had shown us. A fern & dragons tongue I believe, not that it really matters. From there I stumbled upon the clearance section of the department where I found a small, sad looking bulb cactus planted atop an old beer can whose label read “can’t touch this.” The pun lover in me had to get it, had to get the sequestered, full sun plant, had to place it in my shaded home & nurse it back to health. As soon as I went to turn around from the shelf, cactus in hand, there she was, the department head. She explained the cactus would be fine, it just needed a little sun & a weekly misting before she took it & slapped a 99 cent sticker over the $5 price tag. “Truly the easiest plant to care for” she said. “Not unlike the peace lilies!”
“Have I shown you the peace lilies yet?”