By: Danielle Sum (@daniellelikesplants)
Throughout the pandemic, I have found a lot of solace in taking care of and expanding my plant collection. It’s been getting kind of wild, though – I’m up to 20 different species of plants in my personal collection.
In order to help myself stay organized and continue to keep track of all of my plants, I have started a plant journal. It’s allowed me to merge my love of bullet journaling, organization, and handwriting with my love of plants!
If you’d like to start one yourself, keep on reading below!
What You’ll Need
What’s nice about journaling is that you can make it super personal! I will provide a list of general guidelines, as well as my personal picks, so feel free to take from it what you will.
1. Any blank journal will do! I have a Moleskine hardcover dotted notebook that I got as a gift from my friend, so that’s what I am using.
2. Pens, markers, pencils…whatever you need to write things. I use three pens for my own set up:
Printed text: Pilot G-Tec C4 Black Pen
Cursive titles: Tombow Fudenosuke Calligraphy Pen
Pop of colour: Zebra Mildliner in Golden Yellow
3. Some way to draw, illustrate, or capture your plants in all their glory! If you are more artistically inclined, I encourage you to get those art supplies out and get painting! However, if you are not artistically inclined (like myself), then there are other ways to document them. I use an Instax camera to take photos of mine – the perks of this is that I can swap the photos with each passing year!
Organizing Your Journal
It’s really up to you on how you’d like to organize your plant journal. I’ve decided to make mine practical: here’s a list below of what I cover.
- Botanical name
- Colloquial names/nicknames
- Lighting needs
- Water needs
- Fun facts, such as country of origin, or any properties that are cool to know about
In the end, your plant journal should have a purpose that works for you. If you want to be practical, do it! If you want to be super artsy and colourful, please do that…so long as the journal helps to bring joy for your plant journey, then may it serve the purpose you need to! Happy journaling 🙂
