Green Day

A cool indoor garden idea. FYI, this is not me glancing at my plant!

This weekend, I glanced over at one of my plants and saw that the leaves were droopy and starting to yellow. What's up I thought? I was confident that long gone were the days when I had a brown thumb. Or so I thought. My living room is flooded with sunlight and usually my green friends sit happily by the window drinking it all in. But alas, I have overlooked one. Upon closer inspection, I realized that there were strange brown spots on the plant's leaves and that some were even sticky. Ick. Putting on my Sherlock Holmes hat (aka I searched google) I discovered what was happening to my plant was something called scale. A harmless enough name but it was slowly sucking out the sap, draining the chi out of my plant and killing it. To counter this, it is recommended that you wipe the leaves down with alcohol to remove the bumpy brown insects and to clean off the sticky sap.

Beautiful succulents that are a great alternative to a leafy plant

But you may be saying to yourself, "Is she nuts?? My plant has about 1000 leaves!" Yes my friends, the same thought crossed my mind when I looked lovingly at my bushy ficus. Do I fall back on my brown thumb days and throw my arms up in defeat? Decidedly not an option. I am a changed person. Armed with my tools, I carefully swabbed down each leaf and stem. It did take a while but what I realized was that it allowed me to focus at the task at hand, connect with nature (although it was only on my window sill) and keep me in the present moment. The hour flew by, I felt relaxed and happy knowing that I saved my little plant but also I was happy knowing that I took the time to attend to something that only needed an hour of my focused attention. Moral of the story: Pay attention to your surroundings, don't procrastinate what needs tending to and enjoy the process as well as the rewards. And if you think you have a brown thumb, prove yourself wrong and find an easy indoor plant here.