Living the Plant Life

5-7-25

Most of you know that I am a plant lover. I have been my whole life. It’s reflected in my work. Its reflected in my pass times and my travels.

It surrounds me. But it surrounds all of us. This time of year I long to just be outside. When the grass is growing and the trees leaf out and everything is just GREEN!!!! I especially love after a rain or when the magic hour at dusk hits the newly emerging leaves. There’s just something absolutely magical and therapeutic about this time of year. Maybe it the awaking of life. Maybe it’s the warming air. Maybe it’s the soft humidity. Maybe it’s the smell of the soil coming to life. Maybe it’s the little animals emerging and the babies arriving. But at the end of the day…. It’s life. Plants. They’re all around us and they’re waking up to warm our weary winter hearts.

Plants. I’ve loved them since I was a child. I spent my youth hanging out with my elderly neighbor next door. Her name was Edna. She was always out on the patio in the evenings and I would join her and talk about flowers and plants and birds. She had a huge flower bed where tulips and huge orange poppies grew. She had a tiny spot of Lilly of the valley by her sidewalk. She had sedum… all kinds. And gooseberries and rhubarb. She had daffodils and crocus. All emerging in the spring under huge old tree canopies. Oak, walnut, hickory. I learned a lot from her. She was my little kindred spirit. Or maybe I was really just hers.

As I grew I planted my own garden. At 13 I was created little garden ponds and planted flowers and vines and veggies and tended to my little plot. Some of my childhood favs were love lies bleeding and bleeding heart and alyssum and purple hyacinth bean and morning glories. And in the little pond were water lilies and water lettuce and water hyacinth. With tiny little gold fish flickering in the sunshine beneath the surface. It was childhood magic.

These were the days were I just lived to love all things green and all the little creatures surrounding it.

I ended up becoming a landscaper by trade. Besides nature, my other love in life was/is art. And being a landscape designer was colliding the beauty of two worlds.

I spent nearly 25 years in landscaping I all fields that lay within! And I engulfed myself in cultivated landscape plants. I learned Latin names to diminish confusion. But I also learned and loved tropicals. I have one house plant (it’s a Thaumatophyllum bipinnatifidum) that I got at the age of about 18. This plant has been with me for nearly 28 years. It’s my longest standing relationship! It’s been through 5 houses, 5 moves, 5 pots and 3 root prunings. And weighs about 150 lbs. We call him "The Beast".

Around 2018, I started collecting a lot more plants. I had maybe 5 but quickly turned that into close to 100. It’s something I’d always wanted but just never did. Until I was old enough I guess!

With knowledge, age, stability and the space, I have created my space and surrounded myself with some of my favorite plants, dream plants, "always wanted" plants, needed plants, beneficial plants and everything in between.

My favs on the property are my purple beech tree that I have wanted since I was in my mid 20's, my two Harry Lauder Walking Sticks, the horsetail in my rain garden, the variegated Red bud I traveled to Indiana for, my cute little paper bark maple, oddly enough; my tulip tree that I planted 5 years ago and watched it flourish, my hostas, especially the hostas from the striptease line and my big Guardian Angel, and then there is the weeping bald cypress I spent weeks searching for. There are many more but those are closest to my heart.

Whats your love for plants story? Whats your fav? Which one is your dream? Whats your landscape or gardens like?? Comment below!! Tell me some stories!!

-AJ