Learning to strike the sweet spot between not overwatering or under watering plants, plus the added challenge of sweltering temperatures and upwards of 60% humidity on a near-daily basis, has proved a challenge.

Despite what felt like eons spent kneeling in mulch and, though complaining to my mom, secretly loving the feeling of shoveling my hands into cool, fresh, slightly damp dirt; green thumbs were not as genetic as I’d hoped. What success I have seen, I attribute to those days and a semi-painstaking process of trial and error or, in a plant scenario, of life and death.

My usual form of homicide was death by overwatering. Call it smothering, but something about seeing a plant on the top floor balcony of a sunrise-facing apartment in San Antonio, Texas, where temps hit 90-something the other day… It’s April.

Excuses aside, I accumulated my most recent bunch of plants over the two recent post-paycheck weekend trips to the nursery. They’ve survived a few over-water incidents, but things are going pretty well.