[megansplants]

How to Speak PLANT: plant care for every beginner and every houseplant.

Buy on Etsy.

Kickstarter pledges are all fulfilled which means the book now has free reign on Etsy! 

Get your copy of How to Speak Plant here! 

How to Speak PLANT: the plant-care book that actually explains the weird things plants do, how to troubleshoot plant problems, and how to fix your plant when things go wrong. I’ve always been very frustrated by typical plant care books. They do nothing more than list a bunch of random plant species and give generic “this plant needs bright indirect light!” recommendations next to a bunch of perfectly curated photos of gorgeous plants without actually explaining what anything means. How are you supposed to actually gain any information from those books? You will be happy to discover (or maybe not) that this book does not have one single “plant profile” to be found anywhere on any page. Why? For one, there are more than 391,000 vascular plant species currently known to science -- ignoring the ones that haven’t yet been discovered or described -- and new species are being domesticated and introduced to the hobby every day. So why bother wasting page real estate in this book for 100 plant profiles that only apply to 0.0256 percent (%) of the plants out there? On top of the dizzying number of plants, every single house will have a different environment to offer plants. There’s no one way to take care of a specific plant because there are an endless number of unique household environments out there! After spending years answering questions on my plant blog, followed by several years of moderating Facebook plant groups answering the same 3 questions over and over again, I decided to write my own book that would fill in some of these gaps left by "care guides" that fail to explain even the basics. How to Speak PLANT is a comprehensive explanation of things for plant beginners: pots and repotting, how to water, figuring out natural light quality, humidity tips, and more, using some basic science to help explain why houseplants do what they do (if you have ever wanted to know the chemical equation for photosynthesis, you're in luck!). After learning the basics, you’re going to spend an entire chapter learning how to diagnose plant illness, starting with the most common problems, and identify what you need to change in your routine to grow happy flourishing plants. By starting with the most common culprits and walking step-by-step through an examination of your plant and your plant's environment, you'll quickly become a confident plant hobbyist, too.

[megansplants]

Loved the "enjoying your own happiness is its own form of resistance" hashtag. Indeed it is! Congratulations on your engagement and best wishes for the future!

Thank you so much!!! :)

[megansplants]

So I guess it has been a minute...

Or like two years. Lol. Whoops. To anyone who is still around: hello again!

I don't really plan on restarting this blog, but thought maybe I'd post a life update in the off chance there is anyone in the void who has ever thought about me in the last two years.

My dream job I was so excited to have... was unfortunately ruined by a creepy (old) male attorney direct supervisor in June 2023 (shortly after my last post here). I stuck it out for another year because I was getting incredible experience and I didn't want to compromise my own learning because of someone else's actions, but it was definitely really stressful. Literally every single day I burned with hatred for that attorney, and every time he called me or came to my office, my stomach would lurch and my palms would sweat. After my first year on the job, I started being mostly left to my own devices. I would literally go days without speaking to any other attorney, despite the fact that we had 25 attorneys in the firm. The great learning opportunity I enjoyed early on became a prison of monotony, just a warm body in an office grinding out work without any recognition, and trying to avoid ever being in a room alone with my supervisor. All of that on top of some other significant organizational problems I learned about over time... I started looking for non-law jobs because I was miserable and there really weren't any other opportunities without leaving town, and we're not going anywhere for a while with Bridger's job and the house we bought.

While I was looking for non-law jobs, a trusted mentor of mine (who had learned I was unhappy) approached me about leaving the firm and helping him open a new law firm with a law school buddy of his, focusing exclusively on litigation. I took the leap, and I am SO HAPPY I did!! We've now been operating for a little over 6 months and life is so so so good. It's very fun to be a trusted part of the team. Although I've only been practicing for just shy of 3 years, we're already talking about the path to becoming a partner. They value my work, and I'm definitely 3rd "in charge" at the firm although there is one other attorney who has been practicing twice as long as me. Shifting to a smaller firm was absolutely the right move. Gettting a new firm started has definitely had its adventures, but the fact that we all came to the firm with an established client base has made things quite a bit more smooth than you'd think. We're looking for 2-3 more attorneys to start by the end of the year because we're finding way more opportunities for growth than we ever expected to have this early on. Plus, I have a sweet corner office that is like 30% bigger than my office at my old firm.

The pets are doing great! The cats are finally the best of friends and are rarely found apart. The dog is thrilled to be "Office Dog" almost every day at the new firm where she gets to lounge in her bed and sleep instead of lounging in her bed at home and sleeping.

I still have lots of plants (and my new office has FABULOUS sunshine so lots of plants there too) but like I posted about in early 2023, there is no longer any kind of "void" in my life that I need to fill with plants. They've become a much more casual hobby, now that plants are not my lifeline.

Bridger and I are BLISSFULLY happy. Living together has been so much fun, and we've definitely grown together as a couple and as individuals. We've been together more than six years.... And we're engaged!! We're gettting married this fall!!! Please enjoy some cute photos of us on adventures the last few years, plus some engagement photos. And YES I was right, he did propose with an heirloom stone. He knocked my socks off with his grandma's diamond. We've been engaged since September and I'm still totally obsessed and look at it constantly.

I know many of you have followed me for a LONG LONG time... even as far back as my college days growing plants in a tiny apartment and trying desperately to find a scrap of joy anywhere in the universe and feeling so incredibly alone.

I am very happy to report that if you keep looking for it, you WILL find your happiness. You just gotta be willing to keep trying.

Love,

Megan

[themarchingbeetle]

[ruinedchildhood]

[hellsite-yano]

[megansplants]

Starting to become truly upset with how hard it is to find quality affordable clothing in Montana. We have an Old Navy and a Target. No offense, but both of their styles have been garbage for several seasons.

Online, the “babydoll” top and/or dress and the potato-sack-shaped clothing is apparently very “in” again through department stores. Amazon is obviously full of complete garbage from fast fashion overseas that is basically just alphabet soup company names.

I even tried going to Etsy to see if I could spend extra money to get something handmade, but even there everything is stupid Shein or Alibaba or whatever if you do an image search with Google Lens.

Like I finally am done with school and have a good job and can afford clothing that costs more than $10 and lasts longer than a season, but can’t find anything that doesn’t suck!! Gaaaahhhhh

[megansplants]

@sweateravalanche ooooo I’ll have to look. Thankfully I literally almost never have to look like a “real” big city lawyer unless I’m going to federal court (which happens sometimes but I’ve got enough suits for that). Perks of being a lawyer in a rural state lmao. Sounds like right up my alley though!! I’ve def described my style in the past as something along the lines of “business casual but with jeans.”

@allisonsaidthis hmm never heard of it, I’ll have to investigate!! Tbh it can be worth it to pay a little extra if it’s something I like and I know will last a while.

[megansplants]

Starting to become truly upset with how hard it is to find quality affordable clothing in Montana. We have an Old Navy and a Target. No offense, but both of their styles have been garbage for several seasons.

Online, the “babydoll” top and/or dress and the potato-sack-shaped clothing is apparently very “in” again through department stores. Amazon is obviously full of complete garbage from fast fashion overseas that is basically just alphabet soup company names.

I even tried going to Etsy to see if I could spend extra money to get something handmade, but even there everything is stupid Shein or Alibaba or whatever if you do an image search with Google Lens.

Like I finally am done with school and have a good job and can afford clothing that costs more than $10 and lasts longer than a season, but can’t find anything that doesn’t suck!! Gaaaahhhhh

[megansplants]

@teacusp yaaaaasssss love Poshmark!!

Tbh my very favorite is Poshmark for shoes — I have switched over entirely to all-leather shoes (as opposed to the fake plastic stuff from places like Target) and I will NEVER go back. I found an old pair of faux leather heels the other day and tried them on and was like NOPE within a few seconds but I’ll happily wear my leather heels for a few hours without much discomfort.

Just gotta be careful to stay away from the “Boutique” bullshit (which is just another way of saying another person selling Shein garbage) but yeah I’ve found some really fabulous finds there before.

[megansplants]

Starting to become truly upset with how hard it is to find quality affordable clothing in Montana. We have an Old Navy and a Target. No offense, but both of their styles have been garbage for several seasons.

Online, the “babydoll” top and/or dress and the potato-sack-shaped clothing is apparently very “in” again through department stores. Amazon is obviously full of complete garbage from fast fashion overseas that is basically just alphabet soup company names.

I even tried going to Etsy to see if I could spend extra money to get something handmade, but even there everything is stupid Shein or Alibaba or whatever if you do an image search with Google Lens.

Like I finally am done with school and have a good job and can afford clothing that costs more than $10 and lasts longer than a season, but can’t find anything that doesn’t suck!! Gaaaahhhhh

[megansplants]

@turlesandfrogs thank you!! I def really appreciate it. As a Montana girl I’m a sucker for a pair of Carharts lol.

The problem I’m running into is now that I’m working as a Grown Up (TM), the things that are considered acceptable for work is a bit different. Thankfully my law firm post-COVID is super casual (jeans for daaayyyssss) but I’m struggling to find tops that work for how wild Montana weather can be.

Like today the low is 18, and the high is 50. No idea how to dress for that except like a light sweater, but those apparently don’t exist anymore unless they’re from Shein or some equally shitty place.

And in warm weather I love to wear dresses (not necessarily because I’m particularly girly but because they’re awesome for keeping cool when it is hot outside) but I’m pretty much finding only (1) formal business dresses or (2) for a walk on the beach. A bitch just wants some cute casual dresses with more support than a spaghetti strap.

Not a whole lot of clothing options between formal business wear (khakis and whatnot) or like CASUAL casual (crop tops and graphic tees).

[megansplants]

@shirawords omg congrats!!!! You’re gonna kick ass 💪

Also, if you need affordable suits, Poshmark is actually an awesome resource. I loaded up and now have like 7 full suits that I paid probably less than $500 in total. One or two are a little more dated (some wider pant legs than what is currently in style) but there are some really amazing options that are basically brand new (one of the ones I bought literally still has the tags). If you can, I’d probably try on a few different brands in person somewhere so you know what fits well for specific brands but even with all the ones I got there was only one that really didn’t fit very well.

I got a full boujie Theory suit for $75 that would normally retail for closer to $800, and a brand new Jones New York with the tags still on for like $60 or something that would normally retail in the ballpark of $500-$600.

[megansplants]

Starting to become truly upset with how hard it is to find quality affordable clothing in Montana. We have an Old Navy and a Target. No offense, but both of their styles have been garbage for several seasons.

Online, the “babydoll” top and/or dress and the potato-sack-shaped clothing is apparently very “in” again through department stores. Amazon is obviously full of complete garbage from fast fashion overseas that is basically just alphabet soup company names.

I even tried going to Etsy to see if I could spend extra money to get something handmade, but even there everything is stupid Shein or Alibaba or whatever if you do an image search with Google Lens.

Like I finally am done with school and have a good job and can afford clothing that costs more than $10 and lasts longer than a season, but can’t find anything that doesn’t suck!! Gaaaahhhhh

[druid-for-hire]

[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled “do not stand at my grave and weep” after the poem by mary elizabeth frye. the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]

a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”

[vampireapologist-archive-deacti]

ppl are so annoying “you can’t paint ur bedroom pink you’re an adult” i did not spend my entire life waiting to grow up and control my life to paint my bedroom beige

[hojolove]

I had a sales woman in furniture store try and tell me not to buy a hot bubblegum pink loveseat because she wanted me to “think about the future”

Bitch, I am thinking about the future. I already got a hot bubblegum pink couch at home and now I need a loveseat to go with it.

[madgastronomer]

when I first bought my house, I announced my decision to paint my bedroom purple. I had wanted a purple bedroom for thirty damn years, you fucking bet I was gonna have one now. My friends decided, for some reason, that I meant what one of them referred to as “14 year old girl purple” (through what’s wrong with the colors a 14 year old girl chooses, I don’t know, even if they’re not what I want as an adult). They didn’t believe me until they saw the color on the actual wall, even thought they helped me pick out paints. My mother, meanwhile, decided to get worried that if I painted my bedroom a “dark purple”, it would be “depressing”. As if, with an entire house to live in, I would spend all my time in the bedroom, which I wanted to be dark because I would be sleeping in there. In the damn dark.

I had like one, maybe two friends who were all like FUCK YEAH YOU PAINT IT WHATEVER COLOR YOU WANT, PURPLE BEDROOMS ARE AWESOME.

But when they actualy saw the finished bedroom, every single one of them was like, “Oh yeah, that’s really pretty.” (Well, the ones who supported me from the beginning were more like WOOHOO.)

And the moral of the story is: Fuck ‘em, please yourself. Either they’ll come around, or you can safely ignore every question of taste they opine about for the rest of time.

[themintycupcake]

This applies to other adulting activities, too. When I was a kid, I decided that I wanted to have a wedding cake made of doughnuts. When I got older, I figured that I would be “mature” about it and get a traditional cake, which the older adults approved of. Now that I’m 25 and facing the possibility of actual marriage in the near future, I’m just like “marriage is a social construct but it comes with tax & insurance benefits, so just give me that goddamn doughnut cake.” If they don’t like it then they don’t have to come to my wedding.

[aridotdash]

https://xkcd.com/150/

[undanewneon]

I would like you all to view my office. I’m thirty and my rainbow room is awesome, people can fight me

[spuffybot]

I’m thirty and my first big furniture purchase was a custom coffin shaped coffee table that opens up and is lined with purple crushed velvet. I would have loved it at 13 and I love it now. Growing up doesn’t mean you have to abandon what makes you happy.

[idareu2bme]

GROWING UP DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO ABANDON WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY.

[marzipanandminutiae]

the infantilization of color and decoration in the home is so bizarre to me- and such a new phenomenon

the world over, our ancestors painted their homes bright or deep or rich colors for centuries. they brought beautiful textiles into their living spaces, and made their utilitarian objects ornamented, or colorful, or shaped like whimsical things. in all cultures, at all class levels and ages, to the best of their ability. and we’re just supposed to throw away centuries of the basic human desire for beauty and visual interest because some asshole decided like 40 years ago that anything beyond a Pop of Color and an IKEA fake plant was “childish?”

fuck that

[megansplants]

All the more reason(s) for us to paint all the doors in our house yellow or orange or green, and to wallpaper the entire wall of our bathroom with octopus wallpaper 😁

[megansplants]

Boy few things are making me want to quit Tumblr quite as much as the new updates. 

Tumblr is finally breaking and becoming the stupid shopping center that all the other social media sites have turned into plus these weird “live” videos that basically are just thirsty clickbait.

Thinking pretty hard about finally being done here.....

[megansplants]

Long-term relationships are so funny.

We’re blissfully happy living together, our lives ended up meshing in a really lovely way. We haven’t had any kind of conflict since the initial stress of getting moved into our house. We’re affectionate and playful and make dinner together almost every night and making travel plans and talking about marriage and children.

I never really believed older couples when they say that when you’re with the right person, it’s not really the big stuff that causes problems, it’s the little stupid stuff.

Until I had to buy ANOTHER jar of the kind of peanut butter I like because Bridger ate all of it, instead of eating the kind he likes (and I don’t), and then did not buy a new jar. I went to the store to buy another jar and I was fuming all the way home and had to sit in the driveway for a minute to calm down because it was so stupid to be mad about peanut butter 😂

Long-term relationships are funny. 🥰

[fawkesandfelix]

Apparently this is her pillow now.

[jaubaius]

TIL Otters have pockets

[beifongkendo]

Dinosaurs 🦕🌿, leaf artwork by Raku Inoue