Humans of Hofstra: Susan Cheng

Photo Courtesy of Leah DeHaemer 

“[I got] my first plant at a free event, because I’m a sucker for free things. That’s how I started; my sister and I both – it was a library event in my hometown of Chicopee, Massachusetts – they had a free event and we went. This was, like, two, three years ago. So, we brought those home and it was toward the end of summer. I was very concerned, because I’d never taken care of a plant. So I looked up how to take care of a plant, succulents in particular, and I did a lot of research. My sister, on the other hand, did not care, so it was me and two plants, and I named them both. They survived the winter, and they survived until [the] next year. I didn’t get more plants until recently. My senior year I went through a very dark time, and I remember researching [that] when you take care of other things, you take care of yourself better, so, plants, animals ... usually that would help. I bought a shit ton of plants – retail therapy – and none of them have died yet and now I have a big garden. I came to college without any of them and then I realized, ‘Huh, they have these planting events, let me grab as much [as I can]’. And when my mom came down [to the city for] an event, I was like, ‘Mom, can you please bring down my garden?’ So now I’ve just amassed a large collection of them. I love them. I learned about propagating in the succulent community, there’s a particular term for it, [I think] ‘proplifting.’ It’s when you take the fallen leaves of plants, and usually it’s courtesy to ask the shopkeepers, ‘Hey, can we take these fallen plants?’ because you’re not supposed to pluck them off. So you take them and when you take them home you let them sit for a bit, you let it callous over and you water it every other day or so, and after a week or two you’ll see little roots start to grow and a whole new succulent will grow. That’s how I started, by proplifting. That’s how you get free plants, wink wink. I have been doing that because my plants, when [they were] left [alone] for a long period of time, started wilting and started growing kind of ugly, so I cut them all. It looks like I decapitated them, but it’s okay, they’re fine. They grow roots, and now I’m starting to grow a really big garden. So if you ever want some therapy – plant therapy – come by my room, I guess.”