Adopt a House Plant was a "plant swap," where people could come and pick up an indoor plant, share cuttings of their own, or drop off a plant they no longer wanted.
Advanced Planning
We started planning three months in advance. The idea for the program started because I had a spider plant that had more than 20 spiderettes (a.k.a. baby spider plants), and I had already given so many to my friends. I started rooting those in preparation for the program and put out a call to library staff for plant donations.
Marketing
We promoted the event on our website, social media (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), and in local publications (Patch and newspapers). We also had in-house promotion with fliers. Social media ended up being our strongest promotional tool.
We have an active seed library and gardening community, and Facebook was a good way of connecting those people to this event.
Budgeting
We didn't spend any money on this program as we had all the materials on hand. We had enough plastic pots, soil and vessels to transport plant cuttings that we did not need to purchase additional materials.
If you were looking to replicate this at your library and don't have an active gardening community, I would suggest investing in some potting soil and cheap pots.
Day-of-event Activity
We set up a few tables in our meeting room and placed the plants on the table. I made sure to have my laptop on hand to look up information about indoor plants I didn't know much about to help connect people to the right plant for their space.
We only needed one staff member for this event.
Program Execution
We had about 12 people come to the event in an hour time span. I didn't anticipate so many people bringing plants to share! We ended up having just as many plants as we started with.
I got feedback that people wished more people came out, but considering we're still in a pandemic and people are wary of meeting in public, I'm happy with the turnout. The community members who came were all very knowledgeable about plants and enjoyed talking with others about what plants (indoor and outdoor) they were growing at home.
This was the first time we did a program about indoor plants. We have an avid gardening community and seed library, but this program showed we should do more indoor plant programs too!
I was surprised about the turnout, and I think we did it in a way that made everyone feel comfortable. We had lots of feedback after the program about how people enjoyed getting new plants for their homes.
Advice
It's never too early to plan ahead. If you are an avid indoor plant person, start taking cuttings from your plants at least three months ahead of the program. It's nice to offer plants in pots for new plant owners, but some more advanced gardeners may appreciate plant cuttings too.
Make sure to have a device with internet access to look up plant care facts.
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