10 Ideas to Keep Plants Alive
True story: I used to teach a night course in product design to professionals looking to change careers. One group came up with an app idea for their final project that helps you track your plants and how to care for them, calendar the watering, alert you when they're dry, ask for help from pros, order supplies, etc.
That would be the 3rd time a student group came up with a perfectly marketable idea that someone else built a few years later and sold for $$$.
Point: TEST YOUR IDEAS. COME ON. I SAID THIS WAS MONEY. Crickets.
1. Buy Plants that Can Survive the Apocalypse
I have 2 snake plants and one ZZ plant. They are indestructible. I water them. Sometimes. They are lovely and deserve care. Just not that much.
2. Use an app to remind you to water the plants
There are plenty of those out there now (See intro paragraph for why I'm not writing this from my yacht). Use them. They're nice and mostly free.
3. Repot those bastards
Plants grow, did you know? They also eat. Once they eat all the nutrients in the soil, they get hungry again. Repot the plants yearly at least and they will stay on the right side of the dirt.
4. Put them in the right environment
I used to know some freaks who would grow birds of paradise in their Brooklyn lofts. That requires insane levels of atmospheric management. Nobody has time for that except unemployed Brooklyn loft-people. Make sure you read the instructions on the little tag and put them where they belong: near windows, away from windows, near heat sources, away from heat, etc.
5. Ask your friends to help out
This depends on your ability to make and keep friends. Once you have your social life sorted, you can start buying plants. Make sure they're able to water them when you're not around.
6. Ask your local garden supply people
Big box stores like Lowes might be okay, too, but the nice people at your locally owned garden shop are going to be extra, extra helpful. Sometimes you have to repay them by buying an overpriced porcelain pot. Get over it.
7. Don't Buy Plants
Maybe you just like the idea of plants, but have no interest in caring for them. You might lack a soul, but you also know yourself enough to not make dumb purchases like rare tropical ferns.
8. Buy edible plants
Stop it. I mean basil, you donkey. If you can eat the bounty, you're incentivized to keep it blooming in perpetuity.
9. Do a plant share
Start with point 5 and make some friends, and then you can swap plants every few months or so to keep your spaces vibrant and varied. It helps diversify the level of carelessness.
10. Buy fake plants
Nobody will respect you if you do this. But, be my guest, if you must.
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