Our homes and hobbies can have a big impact on our mental health and, as a result, on our finances. In this installment of Tori Story, your favorite Plant Mom/Money Expert guides you through her best tips and tricks for keeping your plant babies alive and thriving, and the surprising lessons she has learned about herself along her journey.
Notable Quotes
“Don’t overwater your plants. This is my biggest tip for you all, is if you feel like you can’t keep a goddamn plant alive, it’s probably because you’re actually loving it too much. I need you to be a more neglectful parent, is basically what I’m saying.”
At-a-Glance
04:01 Plant Parenting 101
06:25 Common Plant Parenting Mistakes
10:04 Essential Plant Care Tips
19:22 Best Plants for Beginners
24:11 Propagation 101
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Transcript:
Tori Dunlap:
Hi, Financial Feminists. Welcome back to the show. I’m so excited to see you. We probably won’t use this clip on social, but I have two pimple patches on my face. So if you’re listening to this and eventually you see some clips, you know what they’re from and we’re just rocking it because yeah. I heard they make them with stars now. They have little stars and hearts and stuff, and I think that’s very cute. These are supposed to be a nude color. However, I am so fluorescently pale that these are just…
These are supposed to blend into your skin, and they kind of do, but not really because I am not as tan as the pimple patches would like me to be or expect me to be. I hope you’re having a great day. Welcome. If this is your first time, welcome. My name is Tori. I run Her First $100K which is a money and career platform for women. I host the show. I’m a New York Times bestselling author.
We are a community of Financial Feminists fighting the patriarchy by getting rich. And if you’re an oldie but a goodie, welcome back. We are going to do something fun today on the show, which is a second installment of our Tori Story series. If you’ve been here for a little bit, you know that, of course, we talk about money and we talk about careers and we talk about businesses, but we also talk about just how to show up as better people, how to show up as the best version of ourselves, not just for others, but also for ourselves.
The first installment of the series, which we did a couple months ago, all of this is based on the newsletter that I do called Tori Story. And if you aren’t already subscribed to that newsletter, you can click the link in our show notes, but the first episode was all about how to be a better cook, how to show up and cook better. Everything’s always related to money. I can relate anything to money ever, but please know that these are not exactly supposed to be money episodes.
We got a couple comments from that was like, “I want to learn how to cook on a budget, and I want to learn how to make the five meals under $5.” And that in many ways is the exact opposite of what I’m trying to teach here at Her First $100K is this stereotype of scrimp and cut and save. Yes, we all want to learn how to save money, but also we shouldn’t sacrifice pleasure to do that. If you are spending money to give yourself nutritious, hearty, healthy, tasty, good food, that’s what we’re aiming for is all of the things that give us pleasure.
And if you are cutting those things from your life, I encourage you not to do so. So this is not a series about hats, about keep your chickpea water and make things with it. Yes, we’re learning how to save and grow our money, but as I’ve said many times on this show, I think that things like investing and negotiating your salary are way more important uses of our time than trying to figure out how to cut the things that are already very small budget items.
This is how I’m feeling is it’s like I’m going to talk about cooking, about how to make a good meal to nourish yourself and to nourish people you love not how to eat rice and beans for the rest of your life because I’m not about that. If you have been listening to the show for a while or watching our content, you know that I am a Capital P Plant capital M Mom. If you are watching this, you can literally see behind me we have one, two, three, four plants in my office. I’m literally going to do a quick count.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. There are 15 plants in this one room. I am obsessed with plants. And one of the questions you all have asked me frequently is how do I stop fucking killing them? I want to be a plant mommy. I’ve tried to be a plant mommy or daddy or parent and I just can’t do it. I keep killing my plants, or I’m too scared to start, and how do I nurture my little green thumb without spending a bunch of money because I keep killing the things that I have.
So in today’s episode of Tori Story, we are going to talk about how to be a lovely little plant mommy or daddy, parent, but also how to stop killing every plant you buy and how to create a beautiful little garden oasis. Now, if you are already a good plant parent, a lot of this might seem redundant. This is like plant 101. And if you would like plant 102 or plant 201, feel free to comment down below and let us know. So let’s talk about plants in general. As we all know, there’s indoor and outdoor plants.
I have not really done the outdoor plants because I don’t own my house. I don’t own property. So my garden has been the indoor variety. I have, oh gosh, probably in the whole house about 50 plants at this point, and they are my sweet little babies. But when I first started this plant parenting journey in 2016, I killed every plant I touched. I was you. I was this person. I could not keep any plant alive. I still remember my first corporate job out of school. I had my little cubicle in a very dark office, which was issue number one.
But my mom, I think she literally drove up from Tacoma where I was born and raised and where my parents still live, and she met me for lunch at work and she gave me probably week one or week two a plant for my desk. And it was a succulent. And a succulent is basically it’s a cactus and it was really pretty and cute. And she had pulled it from her garden and she had planted it and bought a little pot and gave it to me. And I still own this pot, but I do not own this plant anymore because I killed this plant.
I loved it far too much, and we’ll talk about this in a second. But after probably three to maybe it lasted six months, probably not even that long, this plant was a rotted, shriveled black thing on my desk. And then I bought another plant thinking, okay, I can do this. This is fine. I don’t know what happened with this one. It’s not my fault. The plant just decided to die. So bought another plant, killed that one too. And then I realized that maybe I’m the problem. Maybe it’s me that’s the problem.
So I’m going to teach you how to be a plant god today with all of the things that I wish I knew and that I wish somebody had told me sooner. Okay, number one, leave them the fuck alone. Leave them the fuck alone. This is the number one rule from a friend of mine who literally calls himself the plant whisperer. If you think I’m bad, this man owns about 500 plants. And one of the first rules he gave me about plant parenting when he discovered that all my plants were dying was to leave them the fuck alone.
The majority of plants in new plant parent care don’t actually die of neglect. That’s what we think is plants die because you go on vacation and you forget or just you get too busy and they’re asking for things and they just die, right? They actually die from overwatering. Too much love is what kills them. And I’ve also realized that plants are much like people in this in many other ways is that if you love them and if you smother them, they will leave. And I’m looking at myself when I say this because I have a lot of love to give, and sometimes I would take this love out on my plants.
And because I was trying so hard to be a good plant parent, I was giving it what I thought it needed, which was water and water and more water. And it would literally drown them. This right here is what you’re probably doing wrong if you are killing your plants. And I’ve had many friends who have come to me over the years and been like, similar to how I came to my friend, “I can’t keep my plants alive.” And I ask them, “How often are you watering them?” And they’ll be like, “Every few days.”
Oh my god, very few plants need water every few days. So how do we avoid killing them first? We don’t overwater them. Many plants will actually literally tell you when they need water. I’ll talk about some of my recommendations at the end of the episode of what plants are easy and will tell you, but they will start to look a little sad. They will curl their leaves in and they’ll flop. They will literally tell you. They will show you like, “Hi mom. Hi dad. Hi, parent. I need water.” They will droop.
They’ll look sad. And then if you water them, they’ll perk up immediately. Wait for them to tell you that they need water. The easiest way to tell if they need water is, again, they’ll tell you. And if you don’t know, put your finger in the soil. Finger your soil. Put your finger one to two inches into the soil. If the soil is dry all the way down, the plant probably needs water. If the soil is still wet, don’t give it water. It hasn’t absorbed all of it. And if it’s like sopping wet, you come out and you basically have mud all over your finger, it definitely doesn’t need water.
In fact, you’ve either just watered it literally like an hour ago or it is drowning. So don’t overwater your plants. This is my biggest tip for you all is if you feel like you can’t keep a god-damn plant alive, it’s probably because you’re actually loving it too much. I need you to be a more neglectful parent is basically what I’m saying. Care less. Truly care less about your plants. They will tell you when they need water, many of them. And if you don’t know, just stick your finger in the soil and check.
Number two, how do we become better plant parents? Drainage. All of your pots need drainage holes. Do not put a plant in a pot without a hole to drain the excess water, especially, see number one, if you are watering the shit out of your plants. Think about it. If there’s no drainage hole, the water has no place to go. So it just sits at the bottom of the pot. And if you are overwatering your plants or if even there’s just no place for the water to go, the water just stays there and then your plants become waterlogged.
The roots are at the bottom of the plant, obviously. But as your plant continues to grow, the roots will get further down and then they’ll just hang out in the bottom of the pot. If you’ve ever pulled a plant out of a pot and you’ve seen all of the roots that are sitting there, they’re all at the edge of the pot or at the bottom of the pot. So imagine now that you are putting a shit ton of water on your plant and the water has no place to go, so it’s just sitting at the bottom where all of the roots are.
Your roots are going to drown. Your roots are going to become waterlogged, and there’s nothing that you can do. So when you buy pots, not just when you buy a plant, when you buy a pot, make sure it has some sort of drainage hole. And if it doesn’t have a drainage hole, keep the pot in the little grower’s pot, which is like the pot that Home Depot or your plant store or the nursery actually gives you. If we use this clip on social, you’ll be able to see this little tiny pot right here, this little tiny plant that I’ve got, you can see the blue plant or the blue pot, and then it’s still in its grower’s pot.
I’ve just put the grower’s pot in the nice pot because the nice pot doesn’t have a drainage hole. My favorite hack when it comes to drainage, beyond just making sure that there is some way that the water can get out, cut up some piece of fabric, like an old T-shirt, and lay it at the bottom over the drainage hole. So when you’re putting your plant into the pot and you’re adding soil and everything, before you add the soil, you have an empty pot with a drainage hole, put the piece of fabric over the drainage hole.
That way all of the soil doesn’t clog up the hole. How is all of this vaguely sexual? Every time you say hole, it’s just not going to be great, but it’s fine. We’re talking about plants. We’re talking about plants. Don’t clog the hole. Put some fabric over it because you don’t want the soil as the water’s running out to clog up the hole and then the water can’t go out. So cut up an old T-shirt, cut old piece of fabric, cut up an old towel and put part of the fabric, some of the fabric, over the hole so that the water can actually drain out.
That’s number two, making sure your pots have drainage. And if you’re buying a pretty pot that does not have a way to drain, then you got to figure that out. That either means you need to keep the plant in the grower’s pot, or you need to not buy that pot. I know. Drainage. Don’t overwater. And then make sure that the water has someplace to go so that the plant can soak up what it needs and get rid of the rest. Number three, your first plant should not be a succulent. Your second plant should not be a succulent.
Take the advice from me, someone who killed the first plant I had because it was a succulent. I don’t know why people believe this, but people say succulents are easy. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, succulents are easy to take care of.” They’re not. They’re fucking hard. They do not tolerate overwater. They’re temperamental. They prefer being outside in the ground. And typically they prefer really hot, humid conditions. And unless you’re in a place like California or Arizona or Nevada, it’s probably not going to go well for you.
Maybe I own a succulent now. I don’t even know if I do. Succulents are just challenging. Don’t make that your first plant because you’ll get discouraged. If you’re inexperienced, don’t buy them. And frankly, maybe a controversial opinion, I think there’s prettier plants out there that are far less maintenance anyway. So yeah, don’t buy your succulent as your first plant or your second plant or your fifth plant. If you are new to the plant parenting journey, succulents are not actually very easy.
They’re very difficult, and they don’t tolerate bad behavior. So that’s number three. Don’t buy a succulent. And in the same vein, number four, do not buy a plant that is beyond your skill set. If it looks intimidating, it probably is. I’m just going to tell you right now, a fiddle-leaf fig is out of the question. Fiddle-leaf fig is out of the question, guys. I don’t even have one. I’m actually scared of fiddle-leaf figs because they’re expensive and I’m scared that I will buy one and kill it and be absolutely heartbroken.
Fiddle-leaf figs are beautiful. If you’re listening to this and you’re trying to be a plant parent, I’m sorry, you can’t buy a fiddle-leaf fig yet. You can’t. Just don’t do it. And because I wouldn’t be me if I also didn’t help you save a little bit of money, couple hacks for number five. Please buy your plants at a nursery. One, we’re supporting typically a local business that could really, really use your business, but also the plants are so much better taken care of. They are healthier.
They are given nutrition. They are given their proper light and proper watering. And one of my favorite things is my nursery here, shout out to Swansons in Seattle, they will give you your money back if the plant dies within a year. They have a return policy. So even if it’s your fault, you can take the plant back and be like, “This didn’t work out,” and you can get a refund on it. So buy your plants at a nursery. Buy your plants somewhere local, because Home Depot, Ikea, Lowe’s does not take very good care of their plants, unfortunately, which is why I sometimes will try to rescue them.
I’m a literal… This feels like an adoption center, going to Ikea and rescuing plants. So buy your plants at a nursery, but buy your pots at T.J. Maxx. Buy your pots at Marshalls or HomeGoods. Although I love going to nurseries, they make their margins on the pots. The most expensive part about plants is not the plant. It’s the thing you put it in. Pots are really expensive. So this is the place where we want to bargain shop.
Buy your plants at a nursery and buy your pots somewhere else. I love, again, a T.J. Maxx, a HomeGoods, a Marshalls, something like that. And an even better hack, don’t buy a pot for your big boy plants. Those are really expensive. If you want to buy a huge monstera… No, we’re not going to say monstera yet because that’s too vocaby and I haven’t explained what a monstera is yet.
If you want to buy one of those huge plants, we’re talking like the ones that sit in the corner, the ones that are really tall, not just ones that will sit on your desk or sit on a windowsill, pots for those kinds of plants typically just start at $50 and work, I mean, depending on the pot, sometimes 100, 200, $500. So instead of a pot for the big boys, buy a basket. This is what I’ve done. You can’t see it. This is where I wish we had more video for the podcast. But in the corner over here, I have a big plant.
It’s a monstera. We’ll talk about monsteras in a second, and I have it in a pretty little basket. I keep it in the grower’s pot, which is the original pot it came in where I bought it from the nursery, and then I put it in a basket. I bought this basket for 15 bucks at HomeGoods. It’s a cute little basket. It’s got handles. And that way I can also move the plant really easily without having to wrap my arms around it and try to pick it up.
That is my favorite hack is if you’re buying a bigger plant, rather than trying to find a pot that is really expensive and also really heavy, just keep the plant for now in a grower’s pot, the original pot it came in, the plastic pot that makes a weird sound when you scrunch it, and just put it in a basket. It’s great. Put it in a basket. Okay, let’s talk about… My nose is so itchy. Okay, let’s talk about my favorite plants for beginners. Again, we’re not looking at succulents here and we’re not looking at fiddle-leaf figs.
We’re looking at easy plants that are also really beautiful, that will tell you when they need water, that will just be less temperamental than some of the other ones. Number one, philodendrons. Philodendrons are easy. Buy them in every shape, size, color, and variant. They’re beautiful. They’re the ones that trail. They are sometimes bright green. The silver dollar ones are my favorite. If you Google philodendron, if you don’t know what that is, you do. I promise you, you do. You just might not know it by name.
Philodendrons are fantastic. They come in a million different kinds of colors and shapes and sizes, and they’re typically really, really easy to take care of and they look really beautiful. So that is one of my favorite plants. I probably have, oh gosh, maybe just I think five philodendrons in this room with me right now. You got to loan my entire house. Plant number two that I would recommend, I just talked about these, I have them all over my house, monsteras.
I believe monsteras are a type of philodendrons. Monsteras are the really big ones that you’ll often see in magazines. They’re very, very photogenic. They’re hot shit. They’re beautiful. They’re the ones with the big leaves that sometimes have holes in the middle of them. And that sounds bad, I guess, but they’re really, really pretty.
They have these huge leaves and depending on, again, the size you buy, you can get the smaller ones with the smaller leaves that do more of the kind of trailing, trailing meaning they’ll hang off of things, they’ll look really pretty, and then the other ones that are big monsteras that will sit proudly in a corner of a room somewhere. My Swiss cheese Monstera is the most successful plant I’ve ever owned. My Swiss cheese monstera is exactly what it sounds like. It has leaves that are probably about the size of your hand, and then it has intentionally these little holes, so it looks like Swiss cheese.
I have propagated this plant. We will talk about propagation in a second, meaning I have made new plants out of this plant more times than I can count. I have variations of this plant. Actually, there’s one in my office. There’s two in my office that came from this original plant that’s in my bedroom right now. It has these just beautiful leaves that have trailed. It just gives more than it takes, and it’s a great little plant.
So monsteras can also be a great option, especially if you’re looking for something that’s very visually stunning if you’re looking for a corner, to fill a corner for something that, again, is really hearty and will also tell you when it needs water. Number three, some of my favorite plants, ferns. Ferns like a Boston fern, they’re best kept in humid environments. So if you do have a shower or a bathroom with some sort of light, that’s a great spot for them. They will love that. If you have a shelf or again, if you can hang it some way, they’re just going to love it in there.
Ferns a lot of humidity, so try to put it in a place with a lot of humidity. They’re hearty as fuck though. They’re kind of like weeds. They will stand up to a lot, especially if you get them in the right climate. Again, very humid. They’ll have a great time. And finally, pothos. Pothos are probably the easiest on this list, pothos and philodendrons. They trail beautifully. They are so fucking easy to take care of. They will tell you when they need water. They’re just great. They’re great little plants.
They’re fantastic. Again, they’re hearty. They’re consistent, and they look really pretty. All right, let’s talk very quickly about propagation. Propagation is like my little 102Ts. But when you start feeling more confident as a plant parent and your plants are growing and they are thriving and they are starting to break away into multiple trailing leaves and stems, what you can actually start to do, fun little budget hack, is make plants from plants. This is called propagation. This is why one plant that is still thriving for me has produced me like seven or eight plants.
Basically, you’ll see on a lot of these trailing plants a node. A node is like a little bit of a root. It’s typically brown in color. And from that node, a leaf has grown typically or is about to grow. So what you can do is you can segment one of these strands of your plant, find your node and cut beneath the node. Just cut that part of the plant off. Now, you should have something that’s, again, roughly about the size of your hand. You can make them larger if you want.
If stick them in a vase of water or a cup of water, after about a week or two, you will actually start to see roots grow out of that cut, that little cutting that you made. You can then, once roots have formed, they should be white in color, you can go plant that little propagation and it will produce another whole plant for you. I give these as gifts. I did this for a friend of mine whose birthday was a couple months ago. I handed her three propagations of plants from my house. Again, I have made multiple new plants from my propagations.
It’s a really great way to get better at gardening, to get better at plant parenting, but to also either gift yourself or gift somebody else another plant. I probably have, yeah, let’s say 30% of my plants I didn’t actually buy. I bought the original plant and then I propagated them off of that plant. So I would not recommend propagation until you get the basics down. But once you’re starting to feel good, once you’re starting to feel like a little more confident and you’re like, “Cool, I can do this,” if my explanation didn’t make sense, it’s hard in a non-visual medium, go ahead and just Google.
Google how to propagate a pothos or how to propagate a philodendron, and you will find a bunch of online resources. There you have it. This is My Beginner’s Guide to Plant Parenting. If you would like a part two, you want to talk about more advanced plants, you want to talk more about propagations, if you’re on Spotify, feel free to tell us down below and feel free to email us or leave us a voicemail with your plant questions. Maybe we’ll do a fun plant Q&A at some point. As always, Financial Feminist, thank you for being here.
Thank you for listening to the show. I hope that this episode as well as our more traditional career, finance, business-focused episodes continue to be helpful for you. We appreciate your support of the podcast. If you loved this series, feel free to tell us if you want more. And if you also just have general life questions that aren’t related to business or finance, you can also let us know by leaving us a voicemail. If you’re on Spotify, you can comment down below. Otherwise, we thank you for being here and we’ll talk to you soon.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, Her First $100K podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap. Produced by Kristen Fields and Tamisha Grant. Research by Sarah Sciortino. Audio and Video Engineering by Alyssa Midcalf. Marketing and Operations by Karina Patel and Amanda Lafue. Special thanks to our team at Her First $100K, Kailyn Sprinkle, Masha Bachmetyeva, Taylor Cho, Sasha Bonnar, Ray Wong, Elizabeth McCumber, Claire Kurronen, Daryl Ann Ingram, and Megan Walker.
Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton. Photography by Sarah Wolfe, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First $100K community for supporting the show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First $100K, our guests, and episode show notes, visit FinancialFeministPodcast.com. If you’re confused about your personal finances and you’re wondering where to start, go to herfirst100k.com/quiz for a free personalized money plan.
Tori Dunlap
Tori Dunlap is an internationally-recognized money and career expert. After saving $100,000 at age 25, Tori quit her corporate job in marketing and founded Her First $100K to fight financial inequality by giving women actionable resources to better their money. She has helped over five million women negotiate salaries, pay off debt, build savings, and invest.
Tori’s work has been featured on Good Morning America, the New York Times, BBC, TIME, PEOPLE, CNN, New York Magazine, Forbes, CNBC, BuzzFeed, and more.
With a dedicated following of over 2.1 million on Instagram and 2.4 million on TikTok —and multiple instances of her story going viral—Tori’s unique take on financial advice has made her the go-to voice for ambitious millennial women. CNBC called Tori “the voice of financial confidence for women.”
An honors graduate of the University of Portland, Tori currently lives in Seattle, where she enjoys eating fried chicken, going to barre classes, and attempting to naturally work John Mulaney bits into conversation.
