Wide-ranging, colourful and healthy, houseplants breathe life into a home. They do, however, require dedicated levels of care – even the fake ones, it seems.
Artificial plants have been a long-standing option for those looking to liven up their household without the physical commitment of watering. Unlike the real thing, they don’t require the same level of love and attentiveness.
For some though, nothing beats the satisfaction of properly maintaining a healthy plant. One woman was particularly delighted with her beautiful succulent – however, her domestic universe would crumble.
Caelie Wilkes was very proud of her succulent – these thickened, fleshy and engorged plants are particularly adept at storing water, and therefore are pretty hard to kill. For a whopping two years, she’d looked after it with the utmost degree of care.
In a Facebook post, she wrote: ‘I was so proud of this plant. It was full, beautiful coloring, just an over all perfect plant. I had it up in my kitchen window. I had a watering plan for it, if someone else tried to water my succulent I would get so defensive because I just wanted to keep good care of it. I absolutely loved my succulent.’
On February 28, Caelie decided it was time to transfer the succulent into a new container. ‘I found the cutest vase, that suited it perfectly,’ she wrote. However, as she pulled it from its pot, Caelie couldn’t believe her eyes – her succulent was, in fact, a fake plant. Oh dear.
Her post explained:
I go to pull it from the original plastic container it was purchased with to learn this plant was FAKE. I put so much love into this plant! I washed it’s leaves. Tried my hardest to keep it looking it’s best, and it’s completely plastic! How did I not know this. I pull it from the container it’s sitting on Styrofoam with sand glued to the top! I feel like these last two years have been a lie.
The original post has since gone viral, racking up more than 5,000 comments and shares. While it’s undoubtedly hilarious, most people seem to have a lot of empathy for Caelie’s plight. One user wrote: ‘I’m ashamed to say this is something I would do.’
Another user commented: ‘When I was a beginner plant owner my mum gifted me a fake succulent but I thought it was real and this has happened to me, took me months to realise it was fake.’
The plant may be fake, but the love Caelie had for it was real.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.