I’m not what you might call “nurturing.” More plants have died by my hand than I care to count. I live and die by my slow cooker. Without it, I’d never eat a home-cooked meal in my life. And … well, I used to have children. But I found an amazing lifehack that’s allowed me to actually keep my little sprout babies from shriveling up like Sarah’s face that time the TSA confiscated her moisturizer and she had to go all of spring break with mondo crow’s feet. Yep, I’m talking to plants now.
After I had gotten all the boring watering and caring for living creatures thing out of the way, I discovered the secret to a successful garden: daily affirmations. Talking to plants is a great way to help your garden grow, as it thrives off carbon dioxide and constant positive attention. “Good, Echeveria. You’re such a good little plant. Yes, you are. What? You are. No. Of course, I love you more than Barbary fig. No, I do. You know I do. You’re right. I know. I know, I’m sorry, okay? I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
I did see some success early on. My plants were staying greener longer and were somewhat bigger in size. But I gave up on this hack after a couple of weeks. The conversation wasn’t exactly stimulating, and public speaking has never really been in my wheelhouse. Instead, I bought a Tony Robbins’ Breakthrough DVD box set and left it on repeat every time I left the house.
At first, I didn’t notice much of a difference. The plants sat there, dumbly soaking up Tony Robbins’s time management tips as eagerly as they ate up my uncanny Cardi B impersonations. But after a while, I started to notice some incredible changes in my little green children. They started to sit up a little straighter in their mason jar planters and became more confident about making hard decisions. They even started telling the neighbor’s tacky gladioli what to do, and they just sat there and took it. I couldn’t have been prouder of far my plants had come.
But this only the beginning. After a few months of the DVDs, my relationship with my plants waned even further. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, really. It’s hard to maintain friendships when everyone is busy. The wood-sorrel would tune out mid-sentence when important Slack DMs popped up. The pokeweed never took off its Bluetooth headset. Priorities, you know.
I do kind of miss them, though. I saw my old ocotillo trending on Twitter last week and almost cried into my vindaloo hummus. Unfortunately, it was trending because it had called the impatiens that runs marketing a brawndo. That’s problematic, but you can’t choose who you love, you know?
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