Are You A Proud Plant Parent? Show Off Your Babies!

I came late to the houseplant game. I live in the Bay Area, so I’ve been subletting for years – meaning I never wanted to start a new relationship with a plant only to have to say goodbye when I couldn’t take it with me!

But now I’m a bit more settled, and taking care of houseplants is so lovely and therapeutic. I’m so proud of the little brood of babies I’ve been raising over the last year or so, and I want to show them off! Maybe you do too?

I surveyed some of the plant parents here at Autostraddle, and we’re all so excited to show off our little ones. If you’re a plant parent, show off your babies in the comments, too!

Abeni Jones, Contributing Writer

two of abeni's plants three of abeni's plants

Nearly all of my plants were adopted! The spider plants were clippings from my mom, and the red leaf one was a cast-off I rescued from my old coworking space. The yellow-green hanging vine one (a pothos?) and the monstera were a dollar each from a moving neighbor, and the palm tree and cactus were rescued from a different moving neighbor! The only one I bought was the pilea from Trader Joe’s (underrated houseplant purchase location)!

Kamala Puligandla, Deputy Editor

two of kamala's plants
Presented without comment! [Author’s note: they’re a Calathea Rattlesnake and Calathea Medallion, we think!]

Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya, Contributing Writer

three of kayla's plantsthree of kayla's plants

The massive bird of paradise was quite tricky to get home from the plant nursery we went to in Vegas when we first moved here! We got the sago palm for a lil’ taste of Florida in Vegas. There’s my rosemary plant featuring bonus dog! And three more babies!

Himani, Contributing Writer

himani's bog

This is Kermit, the bog. He is just a few days old and home to several carnivorous plants, including 13 Venus fly traps and a sundew native to NJ!

Sarah Sarwar, Director of Marketing & Design

sarah's plant, lashonda

This is LaShonda, aptly named by Shelli who works at this website. She’s a Bird of Paradise that I got after a therapy session, as a treat. I also installed a flowering grow light over her because I really, really want her to bloom one of those intense orange flowers. Currently LaShonda has THREE new leaf curls, and she gets kisses once a week.

Shelli Nicole, Writer

three of shelli's plants three of shelli's flowers

Khadijah, Synclaire, and Maxine! We are all just Living Single and wishing it was a 90s kinda world. Even though it’s not I’m still glad I got my baby girls. I also stay with fresh flowers in my spot, it’s been harder since the lockdown but I get what I can from Whole Foods when I got to my weekly shopping trip since all the local spots closed. Oh and I get all my plants from Black Rabbit in Chicago in the Pilsen neighborhood :)

Carmen Phillips, Senior Editor

carmen's flowers
I didn’t grow them, but I got these at the grocery store and cut their stems and put them in the sun to bloom and look what awaited me when I woke up this morning!

Nicole Hall, A+ and Fundraising Director

nicole's radish sprouts

I don’t have houseplants but here are my radish sprouts instead!

Casey Stepaniuk, Contributing Writer

casey's plants
casey's garden

I am so-so at keeping house plants healthy but so far my first foray into outdoor gardening is going great! Strawberries, blueberries, rosemary, and lavender, and peas! I’m happy that I have both plants referenced by Fiona Apple: “I spread like strawberries/ I climb like peas.”

Riese, Editor-In-Chief / CEO / CFO

riese's plant, margot

This is Margot [Author: another pothos?], I am in consistent fear for her life.

Vanessa, Community Editor

vanessa's scallions

These are my scallion babies.

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Abeni Jones

Abeni Jones is a trans woman of color artist, educator, writer, and designer living in the Bay Area, CA.

Abeni has written 91 articles for us.

60 Comments

  2. I live in a small studio in downtown San Francisco so I’m not surrounded by a lot of nature. Having plants and caring for them makes me happy :)

    Here’s one corner with a pothos, snake plant, fiddle leaf, and dracaena

    Mint, basil, and pothos that are currently propagating in my kitchen

  3. My parents backyard is where all the plants are. I had a Venus fly trap & I think a Cape sundew, but both died cause they didn’t get enough insects to eat. :/

      • It is & isn’t. Like lack of flys is great, but the plants did nothing about the spiders & those bite.

    • ohhh noo!! were your VFT and sundew indoor or outdoor? I’m hoping since Kermit lives outside in my building’s patio area that he’ll have plenty of insect visitors

      • They were indoors by a window. The vft died like 3 months after getting it & pretty sure was due to the lack of meat.

        • When I set up my bog, I read that apparently they can only take distilled water or rain water??? The minerals in tap water can kill carnivorous plants. It hasn’t been raining much in JC since I set it up and so… I keep buying distilled water which I feel terrible about.

  4. I’m not really set up to share photos here, but let me paint you a word picture.

    I have a sun room with 3 walls of windows in my lovely vintage Chicago 6-flat and it is FILLED with plants (also a weight bench that once a upon a time I used for weight-lifting and that I now use for sitting on and admiring my plant babies).

    Oldest – Christmas cactus. It’s the granddaughter of the Christmas cactus my mom had when I was a kid. She sent me off with a cutting when I moved to Chicago almost 30 years ago.

    Largest – ZZ plant. It even bloomed last year and I didn’t know they did that!

    Most plentiful – many pots of sansevieria

    Rescue plant – aloe vera. I bought it on impulse at a health food store near my old work because it looked neglected.

    Cutest – tie between a pot of 4 little succulents and a blooming kalanchoe

    Most improved – spider plant. My neighbor gave me a spider plant and it did OK but never really thrived and then I finally, finally bought a bigger pot and transplanted it last summer and it is GORGEOUS!

    Newest – purple-leaved trailing plant whose name I forgot but it’s doing really well. We had brunch with our upstairs neighbor right before the pandemic hit our city and she gave me a cutting from her plant.

    • omg the picture you’ve painted makes me think about when I walk by people’s apartments and they have a window full of plants and I’m like… that person likes plant, they’re probably a cool person


  5. Bathroom plants-crispy leaf fern, fern from Aldi, spider plant and lost of air plants!


    Kitchen succulents, protected from cats!

    • I gasped in delight at your cat safety method! I love cacti and the cat ignores those but anything else is just a toy. I was just browsing glass containers on ikea today thinking about using them to propagate some lil baby plants and now I for sure have to.

      • Yep the greenhouses are from IKEA and I love them, they would be great to protect babies!

  8. I’ve got Kentucky Colonel Spearmint it was thriving but alas something not me is eating it :(

  9. My inside plants are just a few aloe veras, but outside we have peach trees, raspberry plants, strawberries and grapes that are all starting to make baby fruits. In my side yard I planted peas, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, cauliflower, and squash.

    Then in the backyard we have our chickens. It’s in town but I love everything growing in the yard!

  11. First my nursery, in the kitchen, mostly herbs and some flowers for my balcony. Also two Aloe Vera plants because they were getting to big and I have nowhere to put them and all my friends already have them too because they just keep growing. Same goes for my Pilea Peperomioides, Ib have 2 pots and 4 babies for whoever wants them because I’m running out of space.

    Next some pictures of my Hoya carnosa, I think it’s the oval variety. This one was my grandmothers, I inherted it 10 years ago and it’s getting kind of big. Currently has about 25 flower clusters, not al open yet, and the smell is very intense and sweet at night. It’s like a candy shop.

    There are also 3 varieties of crassula in the picture. I had two more varieties, one of them was propagated by my dad about 20 years ago and it was my most loved plant. It got sick, first bugs, then a fungus and now it’s gone and I cried. Thankfully my dad still has the original, so I’m getting a new one.

    Last one has got my Sanseveria (snake tongue) “straight” because I think it’s such a phallic plant. The Dutch name is “vrouwentong” or womens’ tongue. So much innuendo.

    • Fixed the pictures, because I was to stubborn to read the step by step guide. Hope this works. In the guide it says it needs a backslash but not in the example posted above?





        • Thanks, I like it too, it’s like living history.

          The jade plant I had (crassula ovata, now sadly passed) was a cutting from the one my dad has, and that one has grown from a cutting my grandfather made.

          My brothers each have one too.

  13. I’ve been waiting for the chance to show off my latest basil varietal:

    And of course, MURRAYA CURRY!! 😁

  14. I mean, this is mostly a thirst trap, let’s be honest 😎 but here are just a few of my plant babies 😍🌿

    • CJ you have to link to each image individually!! Make sure each one is hosted online somewhere (like imgur), find the URL of each individual image, then follow the instructions with that URL!

  16. Yes, Vanessa! I don’t understand how to keep most plants alive, but my jar of scallion babies make me so happy!

  18. Several years ago I bought a plant in one of those tiny pots on my way to therapy. I presented it, confinced that it would grooow eventually.
    The therapist, who had told me before that I would never really be fine, strongly disagreed.
    Well, she was wrong. About both.

  19. Unfortunately I have no plant babies. Would love to, but I am a serial plant killer, lol. Even those that supposed to be impossible to kill, I seem to find a way to do it. Guess am relegated to plant purgatory.

  20. I only recently (the past year) started getting plants again. I’ve always joked that instead of a green thumb, I had black thumbs of death, because all my plants would die. I finally learned that I was overwatering most of them and have since began re-attempting to create my plant utopia. Autostraddle articles about plant rearing have definitely helped!

    Sansevieria Cylindrica, ZZ plant, and a succulent I am trying to propagate.

    String of Hearts and a dead air plant that still looks cool so, I kept it.

    Christmas cactus! This buddy actually bloomed for me during Winter! It was only one flower, but it was majestic.

    I try to move most of them to my desk during the sunny parts of the day. I have a West-facing window which gets a ton of sun in the late afternoon. So much so that I actually had to move my String of Hearts further away.

    Pictured: Sansevieria Laurentii, Sansevieria Black Star, Philodendron Brasil, Monstera Delisiosa, Peperomia Graveolens (Ruby Glow), baby Sedum morganianum (or Donkey tail)struggling Aloe I recently re-potted, Fairytale cactus, another cactus idk the name of, and a covered Jade plant I am trying to propagate.

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