Plant parents

Emily Curiel, Photo Editor|October 26, 2020

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Hannah Adams holds a shovel while standing alongside her vegetable garden project that she created during quarantine in Berkeley on Oct. 4, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media) During quarantine, Adams says that having plants helps with mental and physical health. “It has absolutely helped me out! Even outside of the pandemic, they provide me clean air, they provide me a sense of stability, something to nurture and love and take care of. I would say regarding my vegetable garden that I just started it was definitely a wonderful quarantine project to keep myself preoccupied and off my phone. And really spend time in solitude just with momma Earth.”

 

Hannah Adams touches one of her Fiddle Leaf Fig Tree outside on her porch in Berkeley on Oct. 4, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media)
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I tell people, it’s important to make a plant profile for every type of plant you have. To keep track of the frequency of watering the sunlight it needs. Being organized is important, because sometimes you can mix up the different requirements for each plant. I like to be on the side of under-watering because plants will always tell you if they need more water. Specifically, Pothos, they will get kind of limp, and they will just look kind of soft in their leaves if they need more water.

— Hannah Adams

Paige Acosta lays on the grass with several of her Pothos children in South San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media)
Paige Acosta holds up her English Ivy while sitting on a patio chair in her backyard home in South San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media)
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Shelter in place kind of ruined a lot of friendships. And not even just friendships, but relationships that I had with people, because it stuck me in my home and there was nowhere to go and nothing to do, and even peers from school didn’t seem like they cared as much when people weren’t around each other. People that you thought were maybe your friends, you weren’t actually as close to as you thought you were. And I found that out when shelter in place happened. I think that also sparked me into buying plants because I felt like no one cared about me. So, I just wanted to have a bond with something else that was alive.

— Paige Acosta

Isaac Arreola looks down at his plants while he holds two of them in his lap as he sits next to his collection of houseplants in his bedroom in San Francisco on Sep. 28, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media)
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My collection of plants started because of a desire to just turn my room into a jungle. It’s almost like an obsession now. Now I want more (plants) just for the sake of having something new in my collection.

— Isaac Arreola

Isaac Arreola decorates his window ledge with succulents to match the succulent poster that he hung on his bedroom wall. One of the plants, which is in a yellow pot, was given to him by a friend hoping that he would keep it alive. Photographed in San Francisco on Sep. 28, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media)
Alex Amaral and Travis Dixon are a plant parent couple together; they have 25 plants. They both began their life as plant parents through succulents. “I started off with a cactus that my mom gave me, which I still have, but it’s back in Southern California with her. Then, I moved up here (San Francisco) and I started buying cactuses. That’s when Trader Joe’s happened and bought some more succulents. And it was just a snowball from there,” said Alex “I also got a bunch of succulents given to me as gifts when I moved away. I also started purchasing them from Trader Joe’s and kept adding more succulents. After that, I got a Monstera and our plant collection kept growing from there,” said Travis. (Left to right) Alex Amaral and Travis Dixon look at each other as they hold their Monstera Deliciosa plants that they propagated in San Francisco on October 04, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media).
The couple started adding more plants to their collection because they both fell in love with the Monstera Deliciosa. “I think for both of us, it started with the Monstera Deliciosa. He (Travis) got one first and then I got one. And then we started taking care of them and decided to start propagating them,” said Alex. (Left to right) Travis Dixon looks at Alex Amaral while holding their Monstera Deliciosa plants in San Francisco on Oct. 04, 2020. (Emily Curiel / Xpress Media)