At the event, we made some arrangements that consisted of only succulents, only faux plants, and some that had both succulents and faux flowers (these were my favorites). To secure the faux flowers in the small pots we used colored marbles, but we quickly ran out of these and decided to use soil instead. In hindsight, we should have ordered more marbles and taken less succulent plant clippings, as we had a lot of plants left over in the end.
When the seniors first began arriving, a lot of them thought the live succulents were pretty, but said that they had nowhere to put them / could not care for them. It wasn’t until a group of Filipina ladies came by that our potted succulents found owners. It felt really nice to create custom little arrangements for the people walking by and seeing the smiles on their faces as we handed them their finished product. A lot of them chose different colors of flowers to incorporate into their pots and they all created beautiful color combinations. Toward the end of the event, we ran out of terracotta pots and we had to improvise. We started making flower bouquets with faux flowers and some colored paper squares from the craft station that turned out beautifully in my opinion! We also switched our approach from waiting until seniors walked up to our booth to simply handing them out to everyone we saw, which I think made a huge difference because it elicited a lot more surprised smiles (who doesn’t love getting flowers?!).
Once we were out of pots and flowers, we packed up the leftover clippings and handed them over to the UCSD composting club so that they could be composted. The whole event was such a rewarding experience and it brought me so much joy to see everyone who came by leave with a smile on their face and an expression of gratitude. The highlight of my day was helping an older couple who only spoke Spanish to create their arrangement and think about how they would incorporate it into their home. This interaction instantly reminded me of my mom picking endless plants out at nurseries without having a single idea where she would put them in our house, she always just said that plants made a house feel like a home and they were never a bad purchase.
I decided to include a picture of me after gathering my first batch of clippings! I was laughing because I felt crazy after doing this, but it was so much fun.