PLANT LADY Is this the new “cat lady”?
Words by Jacqui Chaisson
It starts off with the ivy in a three-inch pot that somehow found its way there you advance to a few succulents tucked in between the coffee machine and the toaster on the kitchen counter. Within a few months every corner of your home is filled with greenery and the humidity is at 100 per cent by noon. Your bathroom is consumed by a Boston fern equal in size to a compact family vehicle and the six-foot fiddle fig that cost you over one hundred dollars has created a rift between you and your cat who just doesn’t understand why the new tree in the living room is off limits. House plants are habit forming - I’ve always believed that the grocery store ivy is the gateway-plant to becoming a crazy plant lady. into your grocery cart. From
Plants have surged in popularity - fiddle figs, succulents and air plants grace the pages of all the national home magazines and it seems everyone has at least one house plant. In line with the enthusiasm for muted Scandinavian interiors, people are also choosing big architectural plants as focal points in minimal decorating. So, what makes house plants so endearing? Why do some of us form bonds with our potted pals and even mourn the passing of our favourite leafy friends? What are the best plants to start your collection - or obsession? Candace Weatherbie, just one of Charlottetown’s self-professed plant- ladies, inherited her green-thumb from her mother. She started collecting plants as a hobby, “I wanted to add a bit of
greenery throughout my home during the winter. However, I quickly became very fascinated with succulents particularly and so the collection started to grow.” Currently Candace shares her home with over 30 plants including a recently purchased mother sedum adolphii for $40 — which is the most she has ever spent. Experts say the key to buying plants is not to buy too many too soon: don’t go nuts and buy so many houseplants you can’t look after them. "Buying healthy plants from a reputable florist or greenhouse is the first step to keeping plants happy," says Alan Preson, owner of Hearts & Flowers in Charlottetown, "Keeping a plant should be simple: remember the habitat it came from and try to keep it as near as possible to that. Cacti need to be kept dry and warm; tropical ferns kept wet."
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www.pei-living.ca SPRING 2019
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