Ceci n'est pas une plant

I've watched the fiddle leaf fig craze with some interest. At first I thought, a trendy plant? But really, why shouldn't a plant go through the same cycle as other items we choose to bring in to our homes and lives?  For years, the shape of glass Coke bottles followed the curves of women's figures: up and down in the flapper twenties, curvy in all the right places when bombshells were big.  We make these connections, consciously or no.  (I didn't realize just HOW trendy this little plant was until a little google search turned me on to blogger round ups here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here, here, here, here, here and here, just to name a few.  Wow!)

Plants are extremely evocative of place -- they literally thrive in some places and not others -- and in this way, they can create a particular vibe.  I remember the rubber and Jade plants of my first Brooklyn apartment, the way the tropical palm wooed me along with the Mexican tile in our little brick rowhouse 30 blocks south.  And because they can't just live anywhere, plants resist the kind of swift commodification of some other goods.  Carved soapstone statuettes used to mean you had been to eastern Africa; now you can get them in a kiosk at the mall.  But my palm didn't belong in Brooklyn and it died.

I love the idea of bringing native plants in to your home.  But what if you live in Minneapolis (a-hem) but prefer the style of, say, California meets British India?

Why, plant something native in a vibey planter, that's what.

West Elm woven planters, I've got my eye on you.




By the way, don't you just love stumbling upon new-to-you blogs?  Check out the fiddle leaf fig posts from the list above--then read some other posts, see if you find any new daily reads.  I know I did.