How to make your plants look good on Instagram
A tongue-in-cheek guide
Step 1:
Buy a brand-new plant (bonus points for a rare and trendy plant).
Step 2:
Find a white wall.
Step 3:
Take your picture.
Step 4:
Upload and get ready for plantfluencer fame.
Warning!
Taking the plant home and caring for it before you take the picture will lead to imperfect results. You’ll run the risk of uneven growth, occasional brown leaves and for your plant to develop character before you share it online.
Obviously, this guide is a joke. Or at least, sort of a joke. I’ve not been on Instagram in over a year, and even when I was, I was certainly not committed enough to beat the algorithm (let alone gain influencer status 😂).
Nonetheless, the pictures of plants that we see on social media, in books and magazines and on plant websites suggest that living with plants means living with these perfectly styled, always green creatures.
I like looking at pictures of beautiful plants as much as the next person. But I also know that these pictures might make it seem as if this is the norm: that houseplants automatically look this way. Not only if the reality different, I also like seeing the behind-the-scenes of lots of things including of how people really live with and take care of their houseplants.
If you read this Substack, I’m fairly sure that you’ve had the experience of falling in love with a plant in a plantstore, taking it home and then feeling like you did something wrong when it stopped looking ‘perfect’.
As I wrote in this post, the reality is that your plant will never look as pretty as the day you buy it. That even growth, all those perfect leaves, the abundance of flowers (see: orchids and peace lillies) will most probably never return—unless you mimic greenhouse-like circumstances (for a peek of that, see the impressive house of ‘the bearded plantaholic’ in this episode of Gardeners’ World).
The reality of caring for plants
I love taking care of my plants. Doing my weekly watering round is often meditative. I love seeing them grow. I love the challenge of discovering what the best place for them is in the house. I love the occasional plant experiment (a future post will be on whether plant irrigators are worth it).
I love their endurance. The Monstera I wrote about recently is actually making two new leaves out of its stem—rather than from an older leaf. That amazes me: how plants survive and have mechanisms of ensuring their own survival even if circumstances made it difficult.
But the reality of living with houseplants is also that some of them die. That their leaves will go brown. That they will sometimes grow too much in one direction. That they’ll look wonky. That they show the marks of living with humans and in circumstances in which they would normally not grow.
There’s probably a life lesson or two in here, but I’ll leave that for another day 😅.
What do you love about taking care of houseplants? What is your reality of living with plants?
I love your focus on the reality of caring for plants--it’s really pragmatic and assures me I’m doing nothing wrong. I like the rhythm of a plant’s life--well, I should say all the different rhythms--the ways that new growth comes on, the way they ask for water, the way they respond to repotting. They are all a little different, so I must pay attention to the individual. They require me to stay attuned, to watch and listen.