#fun fact: palm trees are technically a type of grass

[ricky-mortis]

Curtwen Week Day 4: Haunted

[spnskinnyballs]

Love Is Falling

Summary - You and Dean go on your first date just as the leaves begin to change, the entirety of fall is spent seeing just how sweet a seasonal romance can really be.

Word Count - 2,291

Warnings - Swearing, fluff, cutie patootie dean

A/N - This is a collaboration with @spnfamily-alwayskeepfighting so thank you for looking through my work and go read her version if you’re a Sam girl! A season of love

Part One

Series Masterlist/ My Masterlist

Closing the back door of the classic black car behind you with a wave and a thank you on your lips for Dean’s younger brother and his girlfriend you pulled your bag out in front of you to check the contents once more.

As you rumbled through and ticked off an imaginary list in your head you couldn’t help but eavesdrop on Dean sternly telling Emily and his little brother to be careful with his ‘baby’ once more. Giggling to yourself, he made his way over to you after finally relinquishing his beloved and turned his attention to you. With a smile on his face he looked down at yours, “What’s so funny sweetheart?”

“Nothing, just if I knew how difficult it would be for you to be without your car for a few hours I would have suggested something different is all.” The joking tone of your voice earned an eye roll and a sarcastic ‘ha ha’ causing you to laugh even harder.

Slapping his arm, you traced your hand down until your fingers found his palm and you tugged him along walking backwards. “C’mon, let's go, I’m excited!”

Shaking his head at you a fresh smile formed once more at your enthusiasm and he matched your strides until you were close enough to turn and walk deeper into the Shenandoah National Park before you. Sunlight streamed through the branches bouncing off the crumpled orange leaves that scattered the floor, it really was beautiful.

As the two of you made your way towards the designated trail you both shared in the silence, taking in the background noises of the streams below and squirrels jumping through the trees.

Your hands were still linked and it sent an awkward shiver up your back, should you be holding hands like this? I mean it was technically a first date after all and you didn’t really mean to hold his hand, you were just pulling him along. As the trivial thoughts made themselves known you physically shook your head and made the decision to move your hand so that your fingers were interlinking with his. The squeeze of his fingers against yours sent a flurry to your heart and you couldn’t help the smile that grew on your face.

With a clearing of his throat you looked up to find Dean poking his tongue out in between his lips before he spoke, his eyes on the path in front of you. “So where are you taking me then?”

Pointing ahead of you your finger scanned through the clearing in the trees, “I just want to do this little trail, Fox Hollow Loop, it’s not that long but it’s supposed to be really pretty with an old cemetery in the middle.”

Deans steps faltered as he looked at you quizzically, “I’m sorry, what? I offer to take you out for dinner, drinks, the whole nine and you say no thanks let’s go to a graveyard in the middle of a forest?!”

You couldn’t help the whole body laugh that escaped you at his comment, throwing your head back your free hand wrapped around his flanneled bicep to keep yourself upright. Looking up at his soft features you slapped his arm gently, “You have a lot to learn, Winchester!”

Both laughing at one another you continued through the clearing, all the while Dean guiding you down the old steps and leading you to safe footing in the puddled paths. He was such a gentleman, bringing his charm out in full force for today’s activities as though you even had a chance to deny him.

Even though you made a point to turn down his advances the first few times he asked you to join him for ‘a fun night out’ you weren't about to deny the way your heart sped up when he leaned across to hand you back your car keys that first time you met and those green eyes bored into yours. Or even the way that his tongue peeked out ever so slightly to graze against his lower lip when he wasn’t concentrating. He even smelled good. All the damn time. Who smelt good when they were covered in grease and sweat?! Dean frickin winchester that’s who.

You were brought out of your thoughts by Dean abruptly stopping, moving himself behind your body your breath hitched in your throat as he brought his face down so his cheek was side by side with yours. You could feel the soft scratch of his stubble against your cheek, involuntarily leaning into it. You could feel the smile that spread across his cheeks as he pointed ahead of your eyeline, following his gaze you saw the start of an old crumbling wall hidden through the trees.

Gasping in excitement you twisted around finding yourself almost nose to nose with him and there they were again, those beautiful eyes an even lighter green now that they were taking in the orange of the scenery. Finding yourself staring you quickly took a step back as you watched a smirk spread across his cocky little face, “C’mon Winchester, I gotta take some photos,”

He followed behind you, an arm wrapping loosely around your waist as you walked across the uneven stone flooring. “What we taking photos of, the church?” He questioned.

Looking down at the floor you hoped you hid the smile that came as he wrapped his arm around you, you didn’t want to give him too many reasons to be cocky. You stepped forward knocking loose rocks in your way with your hiking boot as you moved your body ever so slightly closer to his before you responded. “Kinda, I’m not really sure what I want yet so we’re just gonna have a look. I only need a few photos though.”

“That’s cool, they for Instagram or something?”

Laughing at his question you looked up into his face only to find a soft smile gracing it before you calmed your laughter, “I’m sorry, you just don’t really catch me as the Instagram type.”

He huffed indignantly and brought his hand to his chest in mock outrage. “I’ll have you know I’m very cool, ya know, I’m down with the kids.”

The laughter that left your mouth was musical, Dean's whole face lit up in amusement and wonder that he could draw that sound from your lips. It was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard and knowing that he was the one to draw that pure song from you only made a sense of pride bloom in his chest.

When you finally caught your breath there were tears glistening against your eyes along with a pink tinge to your cheeks. “Sure honey, whatever you say,” your words were patronising and crackled with laughter causing Dean to chuckle despite his feigned annoyance.

Stumbling towards the boundary of the graveyard neither of you could keep the laughter at bay. It seemed that anything the other did for those few minutes made the other laugh and a chain reaction was set off until you were leaning against the cold stonewall begging him to leave you alone. Backing away from you slowly Dean held up his hands in surrender, his cheeks hurting from laughing so hard. It seemed like all you did in the last hour was make one another laugh, could be worse for a first date.

Once you’d regained your self control you followed on behind to find where that man had wandered off to. Tracing your fingers against the crumbling wall you took in the beauty of the little courtyard, purely by the age if nothing else. Finding an old wooden gate you pushed it open with a squeak that rang unpleasantly through your ears until you were standing on the fresh grass. Looking around your eyes were drawn to a dozen or so incredibly old headstones, not for their age this time but for how well kept they were even after all this time. They were dawned with flowers and patriotic flags, every headstone was clean and cared for, the beauty of such a random act of kindness made your heart feel just that little bit lighter.

As your eyes skirted the remaining decorations of the small courtyard you found Dean sat leaning up against a broken wall near a line of trees. His bowlegs stretched out before him, flannel sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows and a curious look on his face as he watched your gaze from the second the squeak of the gate announced your entry.

Wandering over towards him you slid off your backpack and placed yourself on the grass until you were side by side, thighs just touching one another. Fishing a water bottle out of your bag you took a long sip then offered it over to Dean, your eyes still on the beauty in front of you.

Dean tapped the half drunk water bottle against your arm effectively bringing you out of your trance. Taking the bottle from his hands you smiled gratefully at him before leaning your head against the wall so you were almost flush to his side. “You know you look really cute when you look at pretty shit like this.”

Bumping your shoulder into his you let out a small laugh, “Thanks, I think?”

The smile he was giving you just had cheeky written all over it. “Oh it’s a compliment Y/N, don’t worry.”

“Well aren’t you charming today! Okay I’m gonna take a couple photos then we can walk the other part of the trail back, that sound good?” You asked pulling you backpack in between your legs to hunt for your camera. Dean responded with an affirmation and crossed his arms over his chest, lifting his chin to the sky a little as he closed his eyes. You could physically see his muscles relax into the sun despite the lack of warmth.

Finding your camera you rolled forward onto your knees until your elbows were in the grass and you could take a photo or two on your hands and knees. It was purely for the angle, absolutely nothing to do with the fact that your ass was now in direct eyeline of the handsome man behind you. Nope, for all you knew his eyes were still closed. They definitely weren’t closed anymore.

After taking a few photos on the floor you wandered around scribbling names you found on headstones in your notes as well as anything else you thought would be useful for later. Your journey took you on a full circle around the dilapidated ruins and by the time your little spot came back into view once more you searched for your date finding him sprawled across the grass.

Curiously you wandered forward until you heard him speak a quiet ‘hey buddy’ and you saw a sliver of fluff. Halting your advances you pulled your camera back out and zoomed in until you could take in the image in its entirety. You snapped a few photos of Dean almost laying in the grass holding a grey bunny near his face and calling him buddy.

Honestly it was probably one of the cutest things you’d ever seen.

Smiling to yourself you called out to him as you started to make your way forward, “Making friends are we, De?”

He looked up at you startled before carefully guiding the rabbit to the ground telling him to shoo, by the time his eyes found yours again his entire face seemed bashful and he shrugged his shoulders.

Christ, he was just getting cuter.

You offered a hand out to him and helped pull him to his feet, even if he was just humouring you he clasped his hand in yours and your feet stumbled beneath you before his hands caught your waist to steady you. Yep, add ridiculously strong to that list too.

Looking up into his eyes you whispered a small thanks before his eyes wandered down towards your lips and back up to your gaze seeking permission. Your breath caught in your throat once more as you took in all the meaning behind those green orbs, all the desire, all the want and you felt your heart rate speed up. Your hands moved up his arms to place gently on his chest as his hands pressed into your side just a little bit firmer and pulled you flush towards him. Deans gaze never left yours, not for a second, he was searching for any of trace of doubt or hesitation within you.

You could tell exactly what he was doing, the level of respect he was showing you only made your heart flutter as he made you feel worthy of such treatment. With a faint smile gracing your face you leaned your whole body towards him, rubbing your nose against his you finally closed your eyes and Dean closed the rest of the gap.

He pushed forward until his soft, warm lips pressed gently against yours pulling you impossibly closer as a hum of appreciation reached through your body. Pulling away to break the kiss you deliberated and leaned back in for one more lingering moment.

As you two left one another Dean leaned his forehead to press against yours, a delicate and true smile on his lips as he moved his hand to ghost a thumb across your cheek. After a moment he chuckled and leaned back to look at you, “And to think you turned me down twice Y/N, look what we’ve been missing,”

Laughing once more at the green eyed handsome man in front of you you scrunched up your nose and wrapped your arms around his neck pulling him down towards your lips before whispering against them. “Well you know what they say Winchester, third time's the charm.”

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@dammitsammy @dancingmad08-blog

[magmasliveblogs]

1.02

it is the third day of this, and the third chapter of this lets read has arrived! 

to recap, in the previous chapter the first floor of the inn erin found was cleaned by erin and she leveled up and gained skills, which have not been explained yet. 

It was nighttime.

However, despite the late hour one figure moved restlessly around the room. A young woman. Her progress left a trail in the dust as she walked around the room. She paced from wall to wall, muttering to herself. Then she tripped over a chair.

“Ow.”

Erin brushed dust off her pants and t-shirt in disgust. Well, her clothes were officially dirty now. Parts of her t-shirt were burned black, and her jeans had been cut by the Goblin’s knives. But that wasn’t important at the moment.

“Did I just level up?”

yes i think it is pretty safe to say you did level up, also as i have said before, she is in one sorry state 

“Right, right. Let’s recap. I’m in another world which is actually a video game. And there are monsters in this world and I can level up by doing stuff. I even get skills and when I do, a voice in my head—no, more like a thought appears that tells me I’ve accomplished a task.”

She nodded to herself.

“Yep. Makes complete sense.”

…

“Like hell it does!”

Erin screamed and kicked a chair hard enough to send it flying into the air. The chair landed with a tremendous crash which was satisfying to hear. Less satisfying though was Erin’s foot, which had hit the chair hard enough to jam every toe.

yeah i dont think kicking a chair was the best course of action. fun fact though, when Aragon kicks the helmet in the twin towers movie, his scream is because he broke his toe! 

After screaming in pain and hopping around a bit, Erin sat at one of the tables and cried for a while. It wasn’t that she liked crying or did it a lot. It just helped at the moment.

After about ten minutes of crying, Erin finally started sniffing and choking back tears. She felt better, but quickly hit upon another problem when she went to wipe away her tears and snot and remembered there wasn’t any tissue paper nearby. So she used the rag.

The wet, disgusting rag. But it was better than her shirt. And after that, Erin sat, staring at nothing in particular as the darkness surrounded her.

“I’m tired.”

That was the last thing Erin said before she fell asleep.

an exhausting first day in the life of our protag, erin. lets hope tomorrow brings if not joy and happiness, at least a chance to use the bathroom, 

The next day hit Erin in the face. She groaned and sat up, head aching. Her neck felt twisted, and she was sore from lying on the floor. She still would have slept in longer if it weren’t for the sun and her stomach.

Hobbling around, Erin looked at the bright daylight streaming through one window.

“This is why drapes were invented, you know.”

Windows. These ones had no glass or curtains. They were square holes in the wall, but they did have shutters. Too bad Erin had chosen one of the open windows to nap underneath. 

ok yeah her stomach really needs some food 

“I’ll die here if I don’t find something to eat.”

So she opened the door. It wasn’t courage that made her do it; just the will to survive.

The day was so bright that Erin was blinded for a moment. She walked outside, shading her eyes. And then she stopped. Because a thought had struck her suddenly. Something she had realized but not taken to heart before.

“This—really is another world, isn’t it?”

not going to clog my post, but suffice it to say the realization hits her like a truck 

The plains stretched on and on without pause—

Or did they? Erin stopped as she started to pick out small details on the horizon. Far, far in the distance between the mountain range and the rising sun she saw what looked vaguely like buildings. Was there a town out there? Or a village? A…city?

It was impossible to tell from where she was standing, but the sight of that gave Erin hope that she wasn’t alone in this world. However, just the thought of travelling that far on her empty stomach was impossible so she kept looking.

yes lets fix the issues of hunger and bathroom breaks before taking a hike 

“Are those…trees?”

Erin squinted. There was a small collection of trees in the distance, nestled in one of the valleys. They were trees, weren’t they? Erin felt they looked off—until she realized she was looking down at them from her vantage point.

It was surreal to feel herself looking down on a forest, but that was the only answer she could think of. It looked like there was a small – well, relatively speaking – valley to the east filled with trees. It didn’t look too far away, and if Erin looked closely she could see small specks of yellow and blue on the trees. Fruits?

food located! now to get there 

That was the plan. It was the plan right up until Erin found herself walking by a huge rock.

There was nothing too important about the rock, except that it was more like a boulder, a gigantic mound of stone rounded at the top and like a small hill. It was twice as tall as a normal person and just as long across. In short, it was a big rock.

Erin ignored it at first, except to look at it and wonder if climbing on top of it would give her a better view. But she was hungry, so she walked right past the rock. It was that which saved her.

ominous

As she put the large boulder behind her, Erin felt the whoosh of air and a terrifying loud crack right next to her ear. She jumped, turned around and screamed. Just as quickly she ran as the second pincer nearly took her head clean off.

The thing that had been hiding underneath the rock lifted it up off the ground and scurried after Erin as she ran screaming. She spared only one glance over her shoulder, but that was enough. She ran even faster.

Two large, long pincers made out of a dark brown chitin were poking out from beneath the rock as the crab-monster scuttled towards her. It had lifted the gigantic, hollow shell enough so that Erin could see countless crab legs tearing up the earth as it propelled itself along the ground.

Oh, nonononononononono—

lets hope she can get away from this crab without injury 

“What…the holy…crab?”

Erin could only gasp and clutch at her side. She felt like her legs were about to fall off, and her lungs were about to burst. She was also lightheaded, but she really didn’t want to sit down.

Instead she forced herself to keep walking. It hurt. Everything hurt. But she was still alive, crabs or no crabs.

and she does! nothing like a good run in the morning to get one awake 

Erin tried to smile. Her legs ached, but eventually she got her breathing back under control. And even better, she was at her destination.

“Is—is that a tree?”

Erin gaped up at the strange plants before her. They were probably trees. They had bark, leaves, and fruit. But in each aspect they were slightly—off.

The tree in front of her was thin and squat. Well, squat for a tree. It was still about ten feet tall, but its trunk looked far too narrow to support its weight. And not only that, but its leaves were huge.

“It’s like a palm tree, but with branches. And blue fruit.”

fun fact: palm trees irl are technically a type of grass! also lets hope these fruits arent overly deadly 

Erin’s shouts of frustration echoed in the small valley. She tried to grab the branch again, but she couldn’t even pull herself up anymore. She screamed in frustration, grabbed at her dirty hair, and then kicked the tree.

The entire tree shook slightly with the force of Erin’s kick. The leaves trembled, and the blue fruits moved—

And one fell to the ground.

her battle with the tree was fruitless until this moment, where it bore fruit! lets hope its edible 

“Um, shouldn’t there be some kind of announcement?”

No response. Erin kicked the tree again and picked up another fruit.

“[Mysterious Blue Fruit acquired!] Dun dun dun dun!”

…

After a little bit, Erin put her head in her hands to cover her blushing face.

“…I hate this world.”

this isnt your grandpapies text based rpg

Slowly, Erin stood up and brushed the seed vomit off her clothes. That did nothing to get rid of the smell, though. Then she picked up the pieces of the seed’s core and hurled them as hard as she could against one of the trees.

“I hate this world!”

sadly it looks like the seed core isnt edible 

After a while her stomach began to growl again as the smell from the seed pod dissipated in the morning air. Hesitantly, Erin grabbed the second blue fruit and brought it to her lips. This time she bit into the outer skin and chewed. The texture was unpleasantly rubbery and tough to chew, but thankfully it was edible. And what was more—

“Wow. This tastes really good!”

That was the remark Erin made after she’d consumed eight more of the blue fruits, all in rapid succession. The seed pods she left untouched on the ground, but she happily devoured the outer rinds, stripping an entire tree clean before she was finally full.

but it looks like the rest is! i bet the core is dangerous to consume though 

Groaning with satisfaction she sat back against the tree. She felt good. Sticky, smelly, true, but good. The day was fair and warm, and with her stomach full and the soft grass beneath her there was only one thought on her mind.

Bathroom.

and the initial issue is brought back! no one around so this should be easy 

A few seconds later Erin felt refreshed and happy. Her stomach was full, other parts were empty and best yet she was alive.

“Now, how am I going to get back past that crab rock-monster?”

Erin’s stomach twisted unpleasantly at the thought and her heart began to pound in her chest. But an idea struck her as she looked at the countless seed pods on the ground.

i see erin had similar thoughts as i did,

Erin caught the rock-crab crawling towards her stealthily. In just a few seconds it had covered nearly twenty feet. She stared in horror as it reared upwards.

Clickclickclickclickclickclickclick—

The rock-crab began its high-speed shuffle towards her. Two enormous claws and a pair of dark antennas—or were they eyes? – curled up from underneath the rock.

Erin stepped back, half-turned to run, and remembered what was in her other hand. She took swift aim and threw the seed pod she had been holding.

and the dice shall roll, will this half bakes plan work?! 

Bullseye. The seed core smacked the rock-crab right in the antennae and burst into a shower of pulpy liquid. Even at this range Erin could smell the toxic odors on the breeze.

If she was honest, Erin didn’t know what she expected. Pain, or shock from the rock-crab maybe. She’d nailed it pretty good on the antennae and she was sure that hard to hurt. But still, it wasn’t as if the seed cores were that heavy. She expected the crab to recoil, and maybe get scared off by the scent at best.

What she didn’t expect was for the crab to freak out and start smashing itself with one of its claws. It was panicking, frantically scraping away at the spot she’d struck it with the seed core, ignoring the damage it was doing to its own antennae. At the same time the rock-crab was making distressed sounds.

It sounded like the loudest cricket in the world, only a lot deeper and echoing out from beneath the rocky shell the crab was wearing. That was enough to make Erin back up until she was back among the trees and the crab was barely visible.

Even after she’d gone a ways she could still see the crab doing an unhappy dance as it tried to scrape off the seed pod fragments.

“Huh.”

Erin scratched her head.

“Well, it’s good to know they hate fruit.”

and we have found that this bug rock type is weak to grass! or poison... 

“Gobliiiiiiiiins!”

The green skinned monsters stopped and stared as the young woman screamed and took off running at top speed. But they followed her doggedly despite the insane speed at which she sprinted. These Goblins had learned to hunt other species, and knew that Humans panicked easily and grew tired. They’d catch her as soon as she slowed down.

…Assuming she ever slowed down.

adrenaline is a powerful thing 

It was evening. The sun cast long shadows across the plains. All was silent. Aside from the screaming rock-crab smashing itself in the head and the screaming human, there was no sound in the world.

All was calm.

A single figure sprinted across the grasslands. She was running as fast as she could. Behind her a group of squat creatures followed. It was nearly dinnertime.

Erin Solstice, age 20. A young girl—woman from Michigan with a casual interest in video games and a deep obsession with strategy games. Her hobbies include snowboarding, watching Youtube videos, playing chess, shogi, go, etc. She dreams of one day becoming a professional strategy game commentator.

Currently—

Running for her life.

and we have backstory! a random midwestern girl get transported to an unknown world. at least it wasnt involved with any tornadoes! plus that strategy game stuff might come into play eventually. also hey, commentator, similar to what im doing right now! 

will our protag get back to the inn? will we find out if that truly was a city she found? will erin ever truly find a way to deal with this goblin problem? these are questions that will be answered eventually 

see ya’ll tomorrow, hopefully. i dont post assume i have been captured by rock crabs and forced to cook goblins for them 

[scriptflorist]

Hi! First of all, I think this blog is great. I have a character who likes keeping unusual plants in unusual containers - for example, air plants in tiny glass beakers and a marimo in a fishbowl. I wanted to ask if you have any other odd/cute little arrangements in mind.

Hey ho nonny-no!

Keeping unusual or exotic plants at home is doable, keeping them in planters or cachepots is also very much doable, but you can’t just plant them into any random container.

A marimo in a fishbowl poses no problem, their growth is slow and their biggest need seems to be that you change the water every week or two. They’re low maintenance by nature, so this one is definitely doable by your character.

An air plant in a tiny glass beaker… not so much. Possibly if it’s tiny itself, but even then I would advise your character against holding a plant in a pot where the water can’t drain. Technically, an air plant should be able to survive based on what it can pull from the air, but if your character is in an area with low humidity, they may need additional watering. And that’s only one of several problems that arise with this idea.

Let’s start with the water drainage, the reason so many plastic and terracotta pots have holes is exactly for that. There’s only so much water the soil can soak up, and the rest will tend to just sit there or make it all mushy and you know what happens when you leave roots and soil soaking in water? It moulds. Imagine you’re standing in your socks in a puddle of water all day – doesn’t sound like fun, does it? It’s not for the plant either, but overwatering is about the most common mistake your character is prone to make with that system. Because why not water it when they poke their finger in the soil and the top is dry, the plant sure must need water. Also, consider that the roots need to be able to take in air as well. While most of the air intake will occur via stomata in the leaves, the roots are another air intake spot. So particular plants will require the correct balance of water and air.

Now a glass beaker is see-through, which is good, you can see if the soil needs water and you can more or less monitor root growth, which brings us to the next point. Plants grow and not only above the soil, their roots do too and if they want to keep an air plant in a tiny glass beaker – well that’s what the plant’s got to be as well. Tiny. Repotting a plant takes space, how much depends a little on their size of course, but there should be at least half a hands width for small potted plants, a whole hands width for large potted plants, in every direction of surplus space when they plant them. Naturally, that means the container can’t be the same size as the plastic pot you bought it in.  Imagine buying shoes a size too small and being forced to walk in them, it’s pretty much what they would subject their plants too.

Additionally, some plants will grow roots to the extent that they just straight up strangle themselves.

There’s a specific kind of plant that’s called epiphytes, they distinguish themselves by growing on tree branches – orchids are epiphytes if you’re looking for an example. These plants aren’t parasitic (not robbing the tree of anything), they’re not symbiotic either though (no mutual exchange). They’re living independently, using photosynthesis for gaining nutrition and their roots to provide water – most of them live in hot climates close to the equator where it’s awfully humid. Which I am pointing out because your character might want to specialise in growing these for their living conditions would benefit a rather odd home. One last thing though, orchids and so the others too, prefer see-through plastic pots, which is mainly a courtesy for the aerial roots.

Now let’s look at what else a plant needs, shall we?

Proper aeration, most plants don’t like draughty places. Period. Proper sun and darkness cycles. There are actually plants that prefer shorter days, in fact, need them to bloom. These specific leaves are called bracts, they start out as regular leaves that later gain colour. Common examples are the poinsettia, hydrangea or kalanchoe. The Proper amount of light aka direct sunlight, partial shade or shade – which is funny enough also affected by the time of day, the midday sun is much harsher than the morning or evening sun. Or the window’s cardinal direction – south sides are impossibly hot, west and east are often best choice and north is like you’re basically trying to merge the plant with your window in hopes it gets enough light. In the southern hemisphere, the north and south window problems would be switched. 

The one question that remains is – what does your character think of when they say unusual plants? Is it exotic plants, simply something uncommon to the climate, something that is actually an uncommon plant although available for sale? Or are we talking actually rare plants that maybe five people in the world possess because here it easily gets expensive, no matter if they’re doing it the legal way or not.

If they simply want to plant their unusual but regular plants in uncommon pots, they’d do well to adhere the above described proper care. If they can provide that, they can use pretty much anything they want as a cachepot. If all it’s about is the outer appearance, then there’s no shame in hiding a regular container within something fancier. Moss is also a very common tool used for hiding unattractive sights by florists.

Another thing that your character might consider, depending on how knowledgeable they are, is grafting interesting varieties onto a hardier rootstock. Now, they can’t do this with monocots (these are annuals and things like palm trees and grasses where there is no cambium or central vascular bundle for the phloem and xylem, the tubes that move food and water. Grafting requires the plants to transfer food and water between the roots and the leaves, so those vascular bundles need to line up). And it should be done with closely related plants. But this is something that is done with things like roses and grapes fairly commonly. There are varieties that have good root systems, or that work well for specific conditions, and then grafting on the desired plant for flowers or fruit type. It’s feasible that your character could do something similar to get a specific variety flower by using a more resilient rootstock with it.

Okay, I haven’t forgotten, you asked for more examples. Well, I actually went through the hundreds of pictures I took during my apprenticeship the other day and most of them are of arrangements with floral foam, but lo and behold there was one among them that fits the bill. The planted jeans that never fail to amuse me with their oddity.

(pictures by Mod Jana)

- Mods Jana & Den