Wellness With A Plant Mom: Tips For Newbies & Rituals To Reduce Stress With Briana Gwin @keedle95

Plants have become my little pieces of happiness during the day. Just seeing the greenery and life they bring into my home is so calming in a way I never thought it would if you asked me a couple year back.

Since becoming a plant mom, I’ve connected with so many amazing people who share the same passion.

Being that I’m always on the hunt for new ways to share how to enhance women’s wellness journeys, I asked a few of them to share how incorporating plants into their life has elevated their personal well being.

Today I will be sharing some of the tips and experiences from fellow plant mom Briana Gee who can be found on Instagram @keedle95. This quick interview was aimed at sharing the benefits of houseplants on your wellbeing.

#1. Please tell us a little about yourself and when you first became a plant mom. 

I first became a plant mom in the spring of 2019. I was sharing my apartment with my now ex-boyfriend, and commuting to the city from Yonkers on a weekly basis while I was pursuing my MFA in Creative Writing at The New School. When I wasn’t studying, writing, or reading, I was attending master classes on the weekends, attempting to cultivate a healthy exercise routine, and working as a server to supplement my income, most of which went towards furnishing my home at the time. 

#2. Did plant care come natural to you? Tell us a little about how the beginning of your plant mom journey. 

A part of me has always been drawn to plants, although at first, it wasn’t in a way that I was consciously aware of.

I was raised in a home by two nature-loving parents, and have always grown up alongside an abundance of plants and animals.

My favorite plant of my mother’s was her Diffenbachia tree, which was so large it frequently grew to reach our cathedral ceilings. It would commonly snap when the stalks would become too tall and heavy, and I would watch my mother take the severed halves that had fallen to the floor and place them in water. Within weeks, like magic, roots would sprout and we would have a brand new plant.

At some point our home began to resemble an indoor jungle from all the constant new additions, and we potted them all, since we didn’t believe in throwing plants away. I remember the air in our home always felt clean and whole and welcoming.

 As I started to get older, my mother would have me help her with plant maintenance routines on Sundays, and in the springtime, we’d buy trunk-loads of plants, bushes and flowers for the gardens in our backyard. We’d spend hours on our hands in knees, fingers stained with mulch, weeding, pruning, and planting.

It was something I looked back on fondly when I moved away from home and lived in a place where parks were hard to get to and nature was scarce. Without my realizing it, I began to yearn for my own indoor jungle, and began making trips to whatever nurseries I could find in search of plants to fill my cold, grey space. 

#3. How did you become aware of the wellness and mental health benefits of gardening? How would you explain your experience to someone who’s never owned a plant? 

From a young age, I’ve struggled with the seemingly unprovoked mood swings and behavioral spikes that I’ve now come to recognize as depression and anxiety.

Even though I was raised in a supportive home, I put pressure on myself from a young age to overachieve and to make my parents proud. I struggled with my identity, with fears for my future and with social awkwardness and isolation, and on occasions, I still do. 

I experienced a turning point when I first began adopting plants. I would feel the small thrills of coming home from school or work to see that a plant of mine had produced a new leaf or flower. I would feel pure joy watching plants thrive, and tending to my little indoor hydroponic vegetable garden.

Plants evolved from a merely aesthetic comfort to something profoundly more soothing and productive and positive; instead of sitting home between errands, stagnating in an environment that yielded no life or change, I found a reason to work towards improving small things, and combatting the sense of inertia in my home that I had begun to internalize in myself. 

For anyone who’s never owned a plant, I would describe becoming a plant parent as a gateway experience into self awareness. Plants, like people, evolve over time, and require dedication, patience, and care. When you take a plant into your home it becomes another way of looking at yourself: it becomes a platform through which healthier questions, about your own personal goals and how you can achieve them, can root and grow.

Turning that question onto myself, I began to see the ways in which pruning and maintenance were vital to the overall health of my plants. It manifested in a desire to prune and maintain myself, which brought me towards natural home-made skin-care and hair-care routines, and a healthy outlet (hello instagram plant and wellness communities!) to discuss and share all the things that bring me joy and transformation.

#4. Do you have a specific ritual you follow to reduce stress?

As with most things, I consider myself and my journey towards a healthier lifestyle to be a work in progress. There’s a lot of things I haven’t mastered yet, but one thing I’ve been able to teach myself through plants is how to sit in a room and be present.  

It’s easy for me to get caught up in the feeling that I haven’t achieved enough in my life, but this is one small way I can pushback against that cycle of self-deprecation and existential worry. I practice breathing slower, and I allow the tightly bound ball of thoughts that often controls me in my day to slowly loosen and unravel. 

As I do it, I’m surrounded by the literal fruits, (and flowers), of my labor, a collection of plants that have rewarded my efforts to care for them by thriving and growing in my space.

Every once in a while, I’ll sit in this meditative state, and I’ll hear the tiny, almost inaudible clicking sounds of a few new and still-rolled-up leaves slowly unsticking themselves and stretching, and preparing to take shape.

#5.   What’s one general plant care tip you’d share with new plant owners? 

As a perfectionist, the attachment I had towards several newly bought plants in the beginning of my plant parent journey was more akin to a desire for permanence and a fear of loss. I’d get a new plant, and the first thing I’d think was, “I can’t let this die on me.”

I have lost plenty of plants along the way, though, and something that’s become a crucial element of my process is taking a step back and accepting that the tiny failures and setbacks we experience should be more encouraging than anything else.

Through trial and error, I always end up feeling like I’ve learned something valuable about the personalities and needs of each of my plants, and even if they end up dying, I feel like I’m one step closer to honing that small seed of natural intuition that’s kept the rest of my plants alive so far. And feel free to share your failures as often as your successes!

When I joined the instagram plant community, I began chatting with others about shared or different experiences, and gaining so much valuable information from honest dialogue about my struggles and confusions and observations.

#6. Where can we follow you for more of your journey?

Follow me on Instagram @keedle95. I balance my page between my cats and my plants, but I am seeking in this next chapter of my journey to include more of myself, my process, and my progress towards self love and wellness.

Thanks so much to Briana for sharing her story and journey with me and us. Every single time I am privileged to hear from a fellow plant lover, I am assured that my addiction to them is such a blessing. Please be sure to follow Briana on Instagram for more plant inspiration.