Hello. Aloha. Ciao. Hallo. Halla. Kia Ora. Konnichiwa. Bonjour.

Hi, I'm Lily. On Instagram, fronds know me as Plantie LiL Mama, at home I'm just Mama. I am a wife, Tiny Human mama, plant mama, working mama, and a small business mama. First off, thank you for being here and I do hope you stay and follow this new adventure of mine.

My penchant for all things green started from my own Mama, who grows her own food and owned the OG indoor jungle that I grew up in. It was just fitting for me to start my own indoor jungle when I had a family and a home of my own. My squad is made up of Joel, my husband, life partner, co-parent, and unpaid employee; our daughter Jolene and her little bro, Lincoln. That is my team, yours truly, CEO, Owner/Operator; Joel - Tech Support & Manual Labour Enforcer; Jolene - Creative Director; and Lincoln - Public Relations & Mascot.

If you've read the About Us section on the website, you know that @plantielilmama was born out of necessity. It was born from the need to cope with post-partum depression after giving birth to Lincoln in the spring of 2021. I looked to plants for a distraction and hobby to provide some respite from the daily grind of "mommying" the second time around.

I started with more common plants, the pics I used on the website landing page are the first three plants I acquired to start the hobby. A Monstera deliciosa, Ficus elastica burgundy, and a Ficus lyrata. Both the monstera and the fiddle leaf fig are still with me, but the elastica (RIP) succumbed to the Great Thrip Infestation of 2022. I have since expanded my collection from these three and added a slew of philodendrons, alocasias, anthuriums, hoyas, orchids, cacti, succulents, and other quirky miscellaneous aroids that have caught my attention over the years.

This plant hobby has sparked my natural curiosity for science and experimenting, so it would make sense that over the last few years I would experiment with different mediums to grow my plants in. In the latter part of 2021 I discovered the product called pon popularized by the German brand, Lechuza. Growing in rocks was a foreign concept to me until I started reading up on it. After falling into a rabbit hole and realizing that Lechuza Pon was so in demand that it was impossible to come by; I decided to look into how to make my own version.

Enter, PONfetti, the Plantie LiL Mama version of pon born in the Fall of 2021. I use PONfetti on almost all my plants. I love the way it looks, the oxygen access it offers to roots and the fact that it is conducive to semi-hydro growing. It is my go-to substrate for almost all my plants. Last year I got back into adding cacti and succulents to my collection and with my newfound confidence in growing them (side note: I'm a serial cacti killer because I am heavy handed with the watering can), I came up with a mix for these drought loving plants and called it SUCCohmash.

2024 is the year of the orchid obsession! With the obsession came the discovery that orchids can grow in a mineral mash up in semi-hydro, so I developed the ORCHIEmash, originally named the ORCHIEpon.

That's all she wrote! At least for this first bit so you guys can get to know me and my awesome team that I hustle for. I hope you stay and join me in this planty adventure where ever it may take us from here...

xoxo,

Lily