#1 Urban Jungle Bloggers: Plants and Irish Cream

 You know you are a gardener when everything you see is a potential planter. 

I saw this written on a poster once. This couldn’t be far from the truth for a plant fanatic like me. So when I found this very interesting cup from a thrift store while visiting my sister over the Christmas holidays, naturally, I thought, “This would make an excellent planter!”. I had to have it. I mused about my first time thrifting for planters here if you are interested. 

Yum! It’s a Bailey’s cup! You know, the makers of Irish cream? This cup brought back childhood memories of my sister, cousins and I stealing sips of Baileys Irish cream at family gatherings when no adults were looking (Sorry Mom). We were the four musketeers – Or more so like the three musketeers plus D’Artagnan. I was the youngest, so you can guess which one I was. Young enough for them to not include me in everything, but old enough to not dismiss me completely. Aaaahh, good times! Anyway, back to the cup. I brought the cup home and daydreamed of the perfect plant to compliment it. I decided to go with an Echeveria (naturally).

So I had the perfect cup and the perfect plant in mind, yet I was hesitant to put it together. Why? Well, I know in order to keep the Echeveria happy, I needed to drill a drainage hole in the bottom of the cup. Mind you I have succulents in containers with no drainage hole and they are fine. But every now and then, I obsess about them not having holes and how I have to take care not to over water and blah blah blah….. So you see, putting a drainage hole was not only to keep the plant happy but also to give me peace of mind. I thought about drilling a hole, as ‘D’ had helped me do previously with a ceramic pot (we used a masonry bit), but I was afraid I would break the cup in the process because I didn’t have the right drilling equipment this time. I think I need a glass or tile bit but haven’t invested in one yet.  So alas, no shopping for Echeveria and the cup just sat there on the coffee table, staring back at me with that wink as if saying “You know you are keeping me from reaching my full potential”.

Then something happened! I stumbled on this on-line community of plant-loving bloggers called Urban Jungle Bloggers created by Igor of Happy Interior Blog and Judith of Joelix.com. The idea behind this project is to get some green into our homes and blogs! Every month Igor and Judith invite bloggers to share ideas regarding a particular green theme or topic. You don’t have to be a plant blogger to be part of this. For January, the theme was plants and coffee (or tea, or tequila or any drink that tickles your fancy) and participating bloggers had to be creative in using this theme to write a blog post. Since I am not a coffee drinker, I quickly thought of ‘Plants and Tea’, and perhaps making a post about tea gardens. I have always wanted to try my hands at one. But then I remembered my Baileys cup and thought this was the perfect challenge to motivate me to do what I had wanted to do with this cup from the beginning.

I can’t say I have had Irish cream since those steal-a-sip-when-mom-is-not-looking days but I think the Baileys cup fits perfectly with this month’s challenge. So this is my Urban Jungle Bloggers spin on this month’s theme – Plants and Baileys Irish Cream! I am pleased to have found other plant lovers and looking forward to more posts with Urban Jungle Bloggers.