I am here to admit something very painful for me: I am not a good plant mom.
I kill plants. I try my best, of course! I really do work hard to keep plants alive. However, no matter what I do, I cannot keep a plant alive for the life of me. That's why my house is full of — GASP — fake plants. In fact, I am a HUGE fan of fake plants.
One of the biggest complaints I see from anti-faux plant people is that fake plants never biodegrade.
Um, yeah. That's the point. I want my plants to last forever! I have a tropical vase I put together five years ago that looks as good as the day I assembled it. I intend to keep it forever.
While I understand the sentiment behind trying to look out for the environment, the truth is that fake plants serve a bigger purpose than you'd think.
Especially if you have a disability, or cognitive difficulties. I prefer fake plants because I have a very, very bad memory stemming from a brain injury as a teen.
I simply can't remember to water the plants all the time, and I can't afford to keep buying them. So the constant shame around it is actually infuriating to me as someone who tries her best, but can't quite make the whole plant mom thing work.
I recently wrote an article about a bride who was eschewing traditional wedding practices in order to save herself money. One of her biggest money-savers was opting for faux flowers, rather than going to a florist and spending over $1k on things that will die.
She said that she likes the idea of faux plants better, because it means she gets to keep her wedding flowers forever. And I think that's a beautiful sentiment!
If you find yourself passing judgement on something as silly as fake vs real flowers, take a step back and consider this: you're literally mad at someone over flowers.
The world is so much bigger than the dumb things we get ourselves worked up over. Let's let other people do whatever they want with their flower preferences, shall we?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to stare at my super cute house full of fake flowers.
