And the new 2023 Leaf ornament is...
Monstera Adansonii - my 2022 Ornament. (also available this year)
For the last few years, I’ve been adding a new leaf ornament to my holiday collection. The Adansonii leaf was such a hit, it was my leaf two years running. How do I choose? It’s all about the relationship I have with the plant, and let me tell you, Adansonii and I… well it was really touch and go for a while there.
I got my first Adansonii in late 2019, and no matter what I did, it seemed unhappy. When it seemed like it was a goner, I got two more in 2020, and they didn’t do much better. When I created my Pole Dancing Planter (PDP for short), I decided to pot all of my sad adansonii in the one PDP, and would you believe they thrived? It felt like such an accomplishment after struggling with this plant, that I dedicated my 2022 holiday ornament and part of the collection to Monstera Adansonii! (It also inspired my “Please Don’t Die” tags seen above)
At the beginning of 2023, my Raphidophora Tetrasperma got scale, and try as a I might I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. So, I chopped up the plant, and only kept the bits that didn’t have scale. I rooted them, and repotted them in my Pole Dancing Planter, just a few days before I flew to Portugal for 2 months at the beginning of February. I made a silly video of the process so I would have some things to post while I was away.
On February 10, two days after landing in Portugal, I posted a reel of the repotting on Instagram, and it went VIRAL, getting well over one million views and lots of new eyes on my art! This was particularly fortuitous for me as my Instagram account had been hacked the previous year while visiting Portugal and I went from 8,000 to zero just after giving up my last freelance client and going all in on the art!
It was about 11 months after the hack, and I had only managed to grow my new page to 5,500 fine followers, but with this Raphidophora Tetrasperma (RT for short) reel, there were nearly 18,000 people following, commenting and messaging me about my art—- all in a matter of weeks! How crazy is that? I was so excited that I made my first RT leaf pot while I was in Portugal and people really seemed to love it.
Me and my Raphidophora Tetrasperma on October 11, 2023
And when I got home in late March, that RT plant was rooted and growing like crazy! Since then, I have been tinkering with more RT pots, mugs, ornaments and garlands, and I’m loving the way they’re coming out. Sooooo, THAT is how Raphidophora Tetrasperma became my plant of the year. I can’t wait to share all the new ceramic goodies featuring its likeness! I’ll have the ornaments and garland in my 10/29 drop, and a bunch more in early December for you. You can preview the process of making them here.
If you’ve made it this far, please drop me a comment? Writing this blog often feels like shouting into the void, so I am always delighted to know someone is reading. Thank you for that.