Plants That Don’t Die

I’ve never had good luck with houseplants. A year and a half ago, for instance, I received a rosemary plant from a visiting friend, and it perished within six weeks. Another friend gave me a pot with five little cactus plants to console me. He told me cacti didn’t need much water, as forgetting to water was the most likely culprit for Rosemary’s demise. A couple of months later, I learned that “not much water” isn’t the same thing as “no water at all.” Two of the cacti are still alive, and I memorialized the third, a bright moon cactus, with an embroidery I made last summer.

Rosemary on her way out.

Spider plants seem to be the hardiest of all, and they’ve established a kind of monoculture on my sill. I inherited a pair of small spider plants from Maddy when she graduated from high school almost 17 years ago, and they’ve happily reproduced. I now have plants in two dozen pots and have given away perhaps another dozen over the years. The spider plants have also been responsible for strangling other plants and moving into their pots. One even attacked and broke a clock, which has since been repaired and moved to another location. I’ve also learned that the fastest way to kill a spider plant is not to starve it of water but to overwater it, a method some gardeners use when their spider plants engage in colonialist aggression.

Honoring the dear departed moon cactus.

When I started  work for Wirecutter, I discovered that they solved the dead houseplant problem by acquiring LEGO botanicals. Those are not without their own problems, as I spent some of my time on my first day there repairing a pair of roses that had broken in various places. My workplace’s embrace of the LEGO flowers is one example of The LEGO Group’s move into a new demographic, with stunning success. Even before the pandemic, the company had noted that the fastest growing segment of their business was middle aged women — people like me! — who saw their building as both creative and relaxing in the way of puzzles and crafts. Not all those women, though, wanted to build megacities or had the space for them. Most weren’t really the audience for licensed themes like Star Wars or in-house themes like Ninjago either. Buildable flora seemed like a good idea for this demographic — and it turned out to be a huge success.

In 2023, LEGO released a Botanical Garden as part of its Friends theme geared to girl builders, with minidolls instead of minifigures, colorful town buildings, and storylines of friendship and community activities. The Friends Botanical Garden turned out to be a huge success, and not only with its principal audience. Many adult builders bought multiple sets, expanded them, and adapted them to fit into their cities. I would have done the same if I had room in Little Brick Township.

Aggressive spider plants attack my clock.

LEGO sponsors an Ideas program, in which builders of original creations submit their projects, and if they receive 10,000 votes from the community, they’re considered for an official LEGO set. Italian builder Valentina Bima submitted her idea for a botanical garden, and due to the popularity of the Friends garden, it quickly qualified and, out of dozens of qualified competitors, was greenlighted for an official model. LEGO designers made some changes, including turning her modular model into a stand-alone by adding more green space around the building rather than connectors to other buildings. This review, albeit middling for the final set, explains the changes that were made.

The Ideas Botanical Garden amid the spider plants.

Incidentally, I disagree with the reviewer on the value of this set. Yes, for me its sprawling design made it a poor use of space in my LEGO town. And it does have fewer pieces for the same price as the Natural History Museum. But as a Botanical Garden set, it appeals to people who look forward to the process of building as much as, if not more than, the finished product. And the Ideas Botanical Garden is a delightful set to build, with its new molds, colorful pieces, and creative use of standard LEGO parts. Like the LEGO roses, orchids, cacti, and dozens of other plants in the new Botanicals collection, the vegetation inside and outside the Botanical Garden will never wilt and die. I’ve placed mine among my spider plants and will see if the real-live plants will turn jealous and try to kill it off.