Hello everyone!
For today’s post, I will be taking you on a little journey on how and why we are increasing our greenery around the house. It is a very interesting tale honestly, because it involves one person in my family that definitely doesn’t look the average person who loves to garden. I will also share why I am starting to embrace this hobby a bit too.
We are going to start on the “bigger” plants first, because they hold the bulk of the story.
This one is called Fritz or Fritz-y, as my mom has grown to name it. The funny thing is that, I thought she named it that for one of her favorite shows, The Closer. Brenda Leigh’s husband is affectionally known as Fritz-y, but last year I was told that it is actually named by my dad as an alternative to his great-uncle. I want to say about five to six years ago, my parents went to my dad’s Uncle Freddie’s funeral, and somehow came back home with this plant that was at a medium size overall that has continued to grow these beautiful green vines that my poor dad has had to build a stick structure within the pot so the strands don’t hang down and outside the pot so not be damaged by a pair of snow boots or muddy tires of a wheelchair.
Speaking of names, we have another bigger plant in our living room called, Sally. My mom was given this lily plant as a gift after the family of a resident wanted to reward the nurses for taking such a great care to their mother, and in usual circumstances, they don’t accept gifts at all, but my mom kind of fell in love with it that she knew that it belonged in our new house. Sally is little over three years old now and my nephew has grown to love her because besides the foliage that surrounds the entire thing, we do get one or two lilies that grow really tall and erect so Nolan likes to point at it and say that it’s “pretty” so maybe he’ll have a sort of green thumb too!
We also have a collection of other plants prospering in our kitchen, around our patio doors that lead to nothing but a well-loved cat house! Anyways, originally it was just four separate plants, but my mom recently came home with a tree that was named Groot by my dad! It stands next to Fritz as there is no more room on the right side. It is just a straight line of plants opposite the morning sun. For the most part, all belong to my parents, except for one: Chuckie.
We think this one is called a spider plant, because it is quite bigger and messy like Chuckie’s hair on Rugrats! This was stored in my room when we first moved into the house three years ago, but my dad thought it wasn’t getting enough sunlight and ended up putting it in the kitchen. Honestly, at the time I loved and thought it was really cute but when you can’t take care of your plants on your own, you kind of give up easily. I had the same issue with taking care of fish too!
Money Tree // Pachira aquatica
So, this is my first baby. It’s name is Yuri Mariko. One thing you will find out as you read these next sections, is that I obviously had too much fun figuring out the perfect name for each one! I came up with its name kind of innocently, Yuri was a secondary character featured in A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St, Clair, but what sold me was the many meanings it has, the most important to me is “profit” and Mariko is Japanese for “village”.
The plant origins are in Japan, and flourishes in tropical places, but on the various sites we’ve looked at, say it is perfect for indoors. The only thing it doesn’t like is being moved a lot; in the beginning it was on top of newly cleaned bookshelf by my bed, but my dad didn’t think it was getting a lot of sun so he would change it everytime he entered my room. At the moment, it sits on top of my organ desk next to the window. It gets sunlight but it’s cold over there, so unfortunately I still hear my dad complain about that! He now believes it belongs in Nolan’s playroom because that’s on the south side of the house.
This picture looks adorable but if you look at it long enough you might start to see things in a different perspective.
My mom went to the store this morning and brought back a little plant to sit on top of my bookshelf. We don’t really know what it is, but kind of looks like a tree to us. I think it’s perfect for me and I will definitely enjoy watching it grow as this new year takes hold.
In the background, you can see a small stack of books. They represent something very important and rewarding that happened to me this year. I CAN finish a whole book series on my own! I even accomplished my original goal of reading 20 books, which is something I have never done before in my life! What is even better is that I read five more to finish off this wacky year.
2020 has been something different to various people around the world. There are tons of words that can be used to describe how this year has been for you and if you fall into saying ‘it was the worst year of your life,’ I am terribly sorry for you and really hope 2021 is better for you.
My mom got it for me on New Year’s Eve, and I was inspired to write something about it that also reflects my thoughts on 2020, so I thought I would share it for you too, even though it was pinned on my blog’s Facebook for the majority of January. I literally only removed it because I figured I would have written this post out earlier but I didn’t.
Sansevieria // Sansevieria trifasciata
The next plant I got is probably the most interesting out of all of them, because it just reminds me of a batch of erect green beans! I know that’s not the best description ever, but everytime I see it, that’s what pops up in my mind.
When my mom first brought it home, it was taped together at the ends and at first, it looked like a verdant strand of DNA! There is still two leaves that weave into each other but for the most part, it is starting to fall to the sides and honestly, it’s still one of the coolest plants we’ve ever owned before!
The Sansevieria is also rooted in Africa and everywhere I’ve read about them, they always say how easy it is to take care of while indoors. The fact that it is basically classified as one that likes to be neglected actually made me really happy! As odd as that sounds, it’s true! They thrive better without being in direct sunlight and doesn’t take a whole lot of water either. However, this does nothing to stop my dad for driving me absolutely crazy about its placement on my table. It sits on there all day long and thankfully, it’s not fussy like the Bonsai with moving a lot, so I can still use the desk throughout the day and not have to worry about it afterwards.
Unfortunately, I’ve never had a steady name for it. After learning about where it’s based, I focused on looking at African and Madagascar names and I thought I was settled on Andry (An-duh-ree) which means “warrior” and I thought this was awesome considering the information I just shared above, but I also wanted a cool middle name for it, but I wasn’t able to stick to anything. However, I was watching one of my cooking shows, very early in the morning and heard the name Lilliekoi. It is the Hawaiian name for a passionfruit. It was on the opposite side of the world but I couldn’t stray away from it, so it’s full name is Lilliekoi Andry.
Ponytall Palm // Beaucarnea recurvata
For the final plant that calls my room its home, it is like Chuckie in a way, as they are both palms, but this one definitely really look like you pulled a little girl’s hair into a ponytail. It is so light and soft, it makes you think you’re growing a small patch of grass but it looks so delicate on top of my table that I just feel like one good shove and it will fall and break into a million pieces.
The Ponytail Palm is from Mexico as part of the Agave family. Apparently it is neither a tree or a palm for that matter! It likes the sunshine but is fairly cool with being left alone with no water for a bit, and I am definitely loving those types of plants these days. but don’t worry, we keep a close eye on it and my mom waters it when it becomes too dry inside the pot itself.
Since this one is such a sweet plant, I knew I wanted to give it a nice name that would echo its heritage and overall look. I already knew quite of a bit of Spanish names but I was on a fairly difficult quest because I wanted it to fit perfectly and so I made up a list of girl names that I have always loved and two that stood out to me the most were Paulina and Sylvia. By putting these darling names together they literally translate to “little forest” and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was fate!
For the past few years, I’ve been around various plants and seeing a little bit of greenery in the house and it’s been nice to have a piece of nature in our personal spaces. There are people who believe herbs and even some flowers have medicinal purposes and I have recently noticed my outlook on my mental health has changed for the better. If you have been a long time reader of this blog, you might know I’ve been on an anti-depressant for two years now and I do owe a lot of the progress I’ve done in that timespan but I am yearning to be more connected to nature and release who I am on this earth. What does Mother Nature have that I can bring into my life? And I guess she answered it without me even knowing it.
Do you have any indoor plants in your bedroom, home or maybe an office space? If you do, what kind are they? What is the story behind them exactly? Have you gotten to a point that you’ve named them like mine?
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