6 / matters magazine / summer 2018 READ & RECYLE Featuring Local People, Places and Things that Matter Since 1990 PUBLISHER & EDITOR IN CHIEF Ellen Donker ASSOCIATE EDITOR Joanne DiPasquale ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS Rene Conlon H. Leslie Gilman Sara Knutsen Adrienne MacWhannell COPY EDITORS Nick Humez Tia Swanson CONTRIBUTORS Adrianna Donat, Malia Rulon Herman, Donny Levit, Erin Rogers Pickering, Joy Yagid FOUNDER & CREATIVE CONTRIBUTOR Karen Duncan Matters Please address all correspondence to: Visual Impact Advertising, Inc.© P.O Box 198 Maplewood, NJ 07040 973-763-4900 mattersmagazine.com MattersHello@gmail.com MattersMagazine©isownedandpublished byVisualImpactAdvertising,Inc.,P.O.Box 198 Maplewood, NJ 07040. Matters Maga- zineisfree,withissuesdirectmailed7timesa yeartotheresidentsofMaplewoodandSouth Orange and distributed to businesses and surrounding communities totaling 15,500. Subscriptions are available to non-residents for $30 (U.S.) $40 (Foreign) annually. No part of the publication may be reprinted or otherwise reproduced without written per- missionfromVisualImpactAdvertising,Inc. CIRCULATION VERIFIED BY U.S. POSTAL RECEIPTS. heart of the matter M y kids are worried about me. I’ve been taking in plants at an alarming rate and they’ve noticed. I know houseplants are having their moment – something I haven’t seen since the ’70s when every decent home seemed to have a plant in a macramé hanger – and I’m embracing it. Maybe too much. This winter I started picking up succulents. If Trader Joe’s or a plant store that I happened upon had one in a new shape or color, I’d grab it. My daughter was no help in curbing my habit. She’d ask me to buy one, promising to care for it. But I didn’t really believe her. Over the years, I’ve had to rescue every plant from her darkened bedroom (opening the blinds each day is one chore too many for her) and give it a proper place in my sunny family room. Having settled the succulents in nicely, I started re- searching “easy house plants.” To my astonishment, I found a few that I’d never tried, and sought to remedy the oversight. In came a ZZ plant and a bird of paradise. Then just a few weeks ago my neighbor Melissa moved to Florida and needed someone to take her house plants. Not wanting to seem too eager, I let 30 seconds pass be- fore I emailed her with a raised hand. Soon enough I was driving my car over, filling it with multiple pots of palms, philodendron, umbrella and snake plants, and pothos. They would join my beloved staghorn fern, monstera, trailing donkey’s tail, jade plant, fiddle leaf fig, and many more. The sheer volume clearly put my collection over the edge. I heard the hushed murmuring from my family. (Where’s she going to put all those plants? Wait, there’s more? Oh, wow.) I was veering into joining the ranks of “crazy plant lady.” Now, the problem with having so many plants is that you need to figure out how to place them in attractive pots or baskets and then scatter them around the house Living on the (Green) Edge Anticipating my next stage of life BY ELLEN DONKER in a pleasing fashion. It cannot be haphazard. Otherwise, you will end up looking like a crazy plant lady. Believe me, there’s a fine line. And it takes some time and experimenta- tion and some journeys down the rabbit hole of Instagram feeds of other plant lovers to get it right. And some products. Just last week I found myself in Ikea spying a tasteful metal cart with three shelves to cor- ral some of the plants and accoutrements that were blight- ing my family room mantel. Give me credit: I didn’t buy a plant (they have a very nice selection), except for the suc- culent my daughter promised to take care of. Certainly I could go into therapy to find out why I’ve turned my home into a greenhouse. I’d probably be told that I’m filling an anticipated void: This August my three children are moving away to start their freshman year of college. But I’d prefer not to get too far into my own head. I know that instead of spending hours doing laundry, kick- ing shoes out of the hallway and wiping down the kitchen counters on an hourly basis, I’ll be caring for my plants, reveling in their growth spurts, pruning their brown leaves and administering triage for the predictable mealy bug in- festation. Not a complete substitution for my triplets by any means, but it’ll just have to carry me until everyone comes home for Christmas. Even our cat Skipper is having trouble taking in the impending exodus.