On Plants

Ever since I moved to the city I’ve struggled with keeping any of the house plants I get alive. This apartment doesn’t exactly make it any easier considering I’m sleeping halfway underground, with only a high bar window. Sometimes I don’t know why I bother, but my mind always comes back to an old friend I used to know in Wisconsin. I met her in my sophomore year of high school while she was studying botany in some extracurricular program at the local plant nursery. She used to drag me out to that old greenhouse so I could help take care of the plants, although even then I wasn’t very good at it. I could never quite wrap my head around how much to water them. It would always either be too much or too little. She showed me a few times how to check the soil with your finger to see if it was still moist or needed watering, but after taking off my gloves the feeling in my fingers was always off from not giving the skin enough time to breathe. That or plants just hate me. I tried getting in contact with my friend again after my last pot of succulents died. When she found out she laughed at me that I couldn’t even keep one of the most beginner friendly plants alive, but after teasing she explained that without enough direct sunlight, and the cooler climate, that I wouldn’t have much luck with them anyway. Instead she recommended a nice pothos, Epipremnum aureum, a kind of cubicle plant almost. Since it doesn’t need direct sunlight it should do well up on the high bar window, plus it’ll look good once the leaves start to hang down, and even if I forget about it for a bit, it should hopefully bounce back with some watering. I bought the little guy last week and it hasn’t quit on me yet, so here’s hoping we’ve got something. Expect to hear more updates about my new roomie, assuming I don’t kill this one too.