So, Bingers, I am sure that I am not the only one who has been so hooked in gardening. Since the lockdown started sometime in March due to COVID pandemic, people were filled with lots of emotions. Among those emotions were fear, anxiety, depression, denial, and of course, boredom. We had to move away from our regular lives. The normal is now a thing of the past as we move to and try to embrace the so-called New Normal. We tried different activities to cope with the situation- that despite continuing to function as many of us continued working while in Work From Home setup. Others tried baking, workout, and for many of us- gardening. Thus we saw the surprisingly quick increase of plantitos and plantitas on Facebook. Bingers, I too, become a plantito! Let me share with you my experience:

Distraction from the Pandemic

From a social media guy (my day job) and a pop culture blogger, the pandemic brought seismic shifts to my regular life. I was not used to staying at home. I never was a home boy because I was always on the go. Until COVID happened. Lockdown happened and we were forced to quarantine inside our homes. While the restrictions lightened now, there is still the great risk of contracting the virus outside. It’s like saying we can go out but do it at your own risk. And risking it is not something that I would do for, say, a cup of coffee, or a slice of cake from Starbucks.

With that said, I gotta find ways to take my mind off of things at home. In the early weeks of the lockdown, I renovated and replaced the furnitures at home. I decluttered and redecorated with home decorations from Lazada. That phase of my projects was completed in two weeks. So, I turned my eye on a new one and that was gardening. It actually is not new to me. I have long been fascinated by gardening whenever I visit our farm in the Laguna. But I rarely go there and that pushed me to pursue gardening at our home in the city.

Home Gardening

To start with, we have a little spot in front of our house with existing random plants. Given that they are random, I decided to pull out some of them and replace  with ornamental plants taken from my mom’s garden. I even bought sunflower seeds from Ace Hardware but only two or three sprouted. Since I love to cook, I also attempted to plant tomato seeds and calamansi seeds and some of them are now planted as seedlings.

Gardening has been an extremely relaxing activity for me. It became a habit for me to water them first thing after waking up. There is a sense of satisfaction seeing the plants grow and even bloom. It was as if I created life in time of a pandemic. To a sense, it reminds me of hope. Okay now, I am getting a little poetic about it. lol. Oh have I mentioned? Pinterest also inspired me in my gardening project. Since I remembered that we have to spare aquarium tanks at home, I decided to create terrariums instead.

I layered it with sand and pebbles, soil, planted the succulents, layered the top with rocks, and decorated the tank with planks of wood. You too should try making it at home! It is super easy and the succulents are so low maintenance!

So, Bingers, did the pandemic also make you a plantito or a plantita? Flaunt your garden in the comments below!

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