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Growing Joy with Plants - Wellness Rooted in Nature, Houseplants, Gardening and Plant Care

I killed a bunch of plants this year, here's what happened: How to Do a Plant Audit

Growing Joy with Plants - Wellness Rooted in Nature, Houseplants, Gardening and Plant Care

Maria Failla- Happy Plant Lady and Author of Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness

Education, How To, Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Home & Garden, Leisure

4.8 • 883 Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Happy almost New Year, plant friends! For my last episode of 2023, I wanted to get a little reflective about the joy and growing parts of “Growing Joy.” This year, I bravely held a funeral for many of my houseplants that were no longer bringing me joy. Yes—I lost a LOT of houseplants this year. Some of the plants I said goodbye to weren’t even fully dead yet. They just weren’t happy in my home anymore, and I took it upon myself to consciously let them go in a ritualized way that released me from guilt.

This is a taboo subject for some plant parents. But I believe we need to openly discuss “plant loss” to release guilt and make space for more plant joy. So I’ll be walking you through my plant funeral experience, and how you can perform your own plant audit to grow even more joy in 2024!


In this episode, we learn:

  • [00:00] I recently held a funeral for my dead houseplants this year
  • [01:21] Why I performed a plant audit of my entire collection!
  • [03:47] Let’s celebrate plant loss together
  • [04:09] An excerpt from my book about plant death
  • [04:41] Two options when a plant dies
  • [04:52] Option A: Let it confirm you're a failure, then give up
  • [05:21] Option B: Allow it to make you more curious and a better plant parent
  • [06:33] Why I had such dramatic plant loss this year (I was diagnosed with melanoma!!)
  • [08:52] Allow your plant collection to grow and change as much as you will in your lifetime
  • [09:40] Why I felt guilty about failing to care for the Hoya plants Marcia gave me
  • [10:25] Learn 30 simple and budget-friendly gardening projects with ¡Verdura! – Living a Garden Life
  • [11:45] Find your perfect houseplant with Proven Winners LeafJoy's high-quality, diverse selection
  • [13:53] Steps for performing your own plant audit
  • [14:26] #1 Give yourself a nice amount of time, play music, clear table space
  • [15:33] #2 Walk through your entire collection and assess its state
  • [17:09] #3 Revisit neutral plants - do they spark joy or not?
  • [18:20] #4 Gratitude ritual
  • [19:20] #5 Figure out the highest vibe way to discard your plants
  • [19:56] #6 Donate your healthy plants
  • [20:19] You’re still a good person!
  • [20:56] Consider "life audit" too - are aspects that need culling?
  • [22:05] Where can you find me on social media?


Mentioned in our conversation:


For a detailed list of ways to do a plant audit,

check out the full show notes and blog here!


Thank you to our episode sponsors:

Quarto: ¡Verdura! – Living a Garden Life by Perla Sofía Curbelo-Santiago

Celebrates the power of adding more green to your life with 30 simple and budget-friendly gardening projects that promote well-being through plants. Perla Sofía Curbelo-Santiago of Agrochic.com has put together 30 projects found in ¡Verdura! to transform the initial spark of joy from plants into a healthy habit that enhances your life in many ways.

¡Verdura! is available January 2nd so preorder at your favorite local bookstore, quarto.com, bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble or amazon.com.

Proven Winners

If you want to have success with houseplants, you’ve got to have two things: the knowledge to care for them successfully and healthy plants. Meet my new favorite houseplant grower: Proven Winner’s leafjoy™. With only the best plant genetics grown in a state-of-the-art, European greenhouse, you will not be disappointed in the variety and quality of your favorite plants from Proven Winner’s leafjoy™. This company has taken the guesswork out of plant shopping with plant tags that include scientific names and care guides, as well as color-coded collections for the different areas of your home that you want plants in!

Find plant joy in leafjoy™. Head to provenwinners.com to find your local leafjoy™ dealer and let me know which plant you take home on socials!


Follow Maria and Growing Joy:

Order my book: Growing Joy: The Plant Lover's Guide to Cultivating Happiness (and Plants) by Maria Failla, Illustrated by Samantha Leung

Join the Bloom and Grow Garden Party Community Platform & App AKA the plantiest and kindest corner of the internet! Get your FREE 2-week trial here!

Take the Plant Parent Personality Quiz (Get the perfect plants, projects and educational resources for YOUR Lifestyle)

Support Bloom and Grow Radio by becoming a Plant Friend on Patreon!

Instagram: @growingjoywithmaria

Tiktok: @growingjoywithmaria

Subscribe to the Growing Joy Youtube channel! /growingjoywithmaria

Website: www.growingjoywithmaria.com

Pinterest: @growingjoywithmaria



Our Sponsors:
* Check out BetterHelp: betterhelp.com/PLANTS
* Check out Manukora: manukora.com/BLOOM
* Check out Outdoor Electronics: www.google.com


Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

I recently held a funeral for all of my dead house plants this year, plant friends. You heard me right.

0:07.4

Dead house plants. I'm Maria, the host of this podcast, cheering you all on in your house plant journeys had a lot of dead house plants this year.

0:16.0

And here's the thing, Plant Friends, I'm not making it mean anything about me.

0:21.0

And here's another thing, Plant Friends, Some of those plans weren't even fully dead yet. They just

0:26.2

weren't bringing me joy and I was ready to let go of them. And I took it upon

0:30.1

myself to say goodbye to them in an empowered way that released me of guilt that I was

0:35.0

carrying around. I'm not going to say it was easy. Some of the plants that I had to let go of

0:39.4

were heartbreaking because of the connections that they reminded me of different people, you know,

0:43.8

plants that listeners had given me, one of my first plants that I ever had, they had

0:48.2

real memories associated with them and normally I would let those memories guilt me into trying to resuscitate the plant or to really beating myself up over that plant.

0:57.0

And I didn't have an excuse that the heat turned on and I didn't know and it blasted all my plants and killed it or I was gone and my heat turned off and all my house plants froze I didn't have an excuse like that my excuse was that life got really hard this year I got thrown some serious curveballs this year where all of a sudden even if I

1:15.0

wanted them to be my large collection of house plans could no longer be the full priority of

1:19.8

my life. So I did one of the best things I did for myself all year, which was perform a plant audit.

1:26.5

Where I went through my entire collection, I assessed which plants deserve to stay,

1:32.2

and which plants I was ready to leave and I let

1:35.5

them go in a beautiful ritual that allowed me to release my guilt and create more

1:41.8

space in my life for joy and maybe even more plants.

1:46.1

This is a taboo subject in the plant world, but I am committed to staying real with you,

1:52.0

to being honest with you, even if it embarrassingly requires

1:57.1

me telling you about the plants I've killed.

1:58.8

So buckled up, this is a real and raw review of my plant audit in hopes that if you are in a place in life that you need to

2:06.3

perform your own plant audit I help this episode empowers you to do so and helps you grow more

...

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