Friday Night Plant Salon.

If someone asked me what I do for fun on weekends, with a staight face, I can say "honestly? plant stuff." They'll smile politely the way people do when they're waiting for the real answer.

That is the real answer.

This Friday I dropped Ryden at grandma's for the weekend, an hour south. After dropping her off, we made a detour — because the town down there has a Home Depot and I had a theory that a valley-floor Home Depot in April would have significantly better plant selection than my mountain town situation.

I was correct. Spring had absolutely sprung in that store. I walked in with Powder in his harness like a woman with a plan and walked out with the Sting of Pearls I'd been looking for and a few other cuties I definitely needed. Powder was professionally unbothered by the whole experience. He herded no one. He untied zero shoes. He was, for once, a model citizen. I'm suspicious.

Then I came home. And the real Friday night began.

Betsy Needed a Haircut

I walked in and looked at my string of tears and she was giving me nothing. Scraggly. Reaching. A little chaotic in a way that wasn't intentional or cute. She had flower spikes going rogue in every direction like she had somewhere important to be and no one had told her that's not the vibe we're going for here.

I want trails. Long, dramatic, cascading trails. I do not want flowers stealing energy from the mission. So I did what needed to be done.

I gave her a trim.

While I was doing it — carefully, methodically, snipping spikes and shaping her back into something intentional — I decided she needed a name. She felt like a Betsy. I don't fully know why. She just has Betsy energy. Slightly dramatic, deeply loyal, the kind of plant that gossips quietly with her neighbors.

Which brings me to Pearl.

The Social Dynamics of My Windowsill

Betsy gossips with Pearl. This is established. Pearl is the string of pearls — firm beans, healthy trails, quietly judgmental in the best way. They have an understanding. A vibe. A little whisper network going on near the south-facing window that I choose not to interfere with.

What they do not have is a good relationship with Judith.

Judith is the mislabeled cotyledon. The store called her a cliff cotyledon. She is almost certainly a trailing sedum. She knows what she is. She just doesn't feel the need to explain herself to anyone, including the tag they stuck in her pot. Betsy and Pearl find this suspicious. Judith does not care. She is simply living her truth and growing slightly leggy because she wants more light and that, frankly, is between her and the window.

And then there's Ruby.

Ruby Is Waiting for Her Appointment

Ruby is the ruby necklace. She came home from the Sunset Drive Home Depot trip looking full and healthy and slightly haggard — the good kind of haggard, the kind where you can tell she's been living, but she also clearly hasn't had a proper trim in a while. She has spikes. She has some leggy bits. She is waiting for her salon moment with the patience of someone who knows her turn is coming.

She reminds me of someone whos niece used to do their hair before she went off to college. Talented. A little wild. Now, Ruby is forced to start socializing with actual hairstylists like a normal plant.

Ruby's appointment is coming. I just haven't gotten there yet.

The Actual Evening

So there I was on a Friday night. Powder was somewhere in the house doing Powder things. I had plants lined up in front of me with their various issues and personalities and flower spikes. I had my scissors, sparkling water and Fleetwood Mac.

Betsy got trimmed. Multiple other plants got repotted — the ongoing great soil purge continues, one pot at a time, evicting whatever's been living in store-bought dirt and replacing it with something they actually deserve. New soil. Perlite. Drainage holes where there weren't any. The whole operation.

It took most of the evening. I was not bored once.

Someone will ask me this week how my weekend was and I'll say "good, stayed in mostly" and they'll picture something normal and relaxing and I'll be thinking about Betsy's trim and Judith's identity crisis and the fact that I now own a Chelsea Hoya and approximately forty-seven more plants than I did two months ago.

Both things are true. I did stay in. It was relaxing.

It's just that my version of relaxing involves scissors, soil, and old ladies arguing about pigeons.

Ruby's appointment is next. She's waited long enough. 🌿✂️