Where Did All These Plants Come From? (Apparently, Not Me)

A few weeks ago, I had a sudden thought while watering my plants:

Have I actually ever bought a houseplant? Like… with my own money? From a store?

So I started going through them one by one. Turns out: not a single one.

Apparently, I’ve built an entire plant collection without ever buying a single one.

The only logical next step: visualize their origins.

Painting and asking questions

Before diving into any diagrams, I sat down and painted all my plants by hand — watercolor and fineliner.

Then I scanned them and started building different visualizations around three questions:

1. How long have I had these plants?

2. Where did they actually come from?

3. Which types of plants do I apparently love the most?

Here’s what I found.

1. A Personal Plant Timeline

Some of these green companions have been with me for years — the oldest ones joined me back in 2018. There were others before, but… well, these are the ones that made it. Others only became part of the gang this year.

The timeline shows when each plant arrived in my life, complete with their little watercolor portraits. It felt oddly emotional to lay it all out like that.

Plant Timeline

2. The Origin Story

This chart makes me laugh every time. My plants were either:

• Gifted (exes, friends, coworkers – you name it)

• Found (as in: abandoned, not wild-harvested)

• Planted from seeds

• Or… stolen (let’s just say “borrowed without formal permission”)

The Origin Story

3. Which Plants Thrive the Most?

At first glance, this looks like a simple pie chart of plant types. But actually, it tells a different story: which plants have multiplied.

Because every time I end up with several of the same kind, it’s not because I bought more (still haven’t!) — it’s because they thrived. They grew, I took cuttings, and suddenly I had two, three, four of them.

Biggest growers?

Pilea, Snake Plant, and Zebra Plant — basically the unkillables.

Which plants thrive the most?

Why This Was So Fun

I didn’t start this project with a plan — it was just a random question that spiraled into watercolor illustrations and three separate data visualizations.

But now that it’s done, I love having this kind of overview. It’s funny, personal, and reminds me how much these little green beings are woven into everyday life.

And maybe that’s what I like most about it:

So many of these plants came from people — friends, ex-partners, flatmates — and somehow they’ve all stayed, quietly growing alongside me.

A little living archive of shared moments and old connections.