Around this time last year, Diana Castellanos ’24 was approached by several friends scrambling for someone to plant-sit before they left campus for winter break.
Castellanos, a known plant parent who planned to take her collection home to Los Angeles for the holidays, considered taking her friends’ monsteras, orchids and succulents back too, but thought wiser of stashing so many plants inside her parents’ living room.
Instead, she asked Pomona faculty and staff for a hand.
To her surprise, about a dozen people volunteered to care for students’ plants over break—the founding members of the Plant Babysitters Club.
“Not everyone can take their plants back home with them,” says Castellanos, a biology major on the pre-med track, “so if we didn’t take them in, they [students] were just going to have to hope their plant made it through the winter [break].”
With the holidays on the horizon this year, Castellanos again asked faculty and staff for help.
Whereas last year the 21-year-old coordinated the drop-off, distribution and pick-up of around 75 plants, more than 125 plant friends are expected to be left with Castellanos this month for safekeeping.
Fortunately, the number of plant-sitters nearly quadrupled this semester, ensuring every pothos, herb and calathea has a caretaker.
After caring for about 20 plants last year, Title IX and Cares Office Associate Director Abby Lawlor volunteered to do it again.
“Plants really add a lot of life and character into anywhere, and there are some studies that show they have stress-reducing and healing properties,” says Lawlor, who last winter found joy in learning about the plant parents by how they decorated their pots.
“I had so much fun with it ,” Lawlor adds, “and felt it was a really easy and fun way to support student well-being.”
Last week, the Sustainability Office in the basement of Harwood Court could have been mistaken for a plant nursery. Over two days, Castellanos and EcoReps—students who promote sustainable practices on campus—collected and organized the multitude of plants being dropped off for supervision.
At one point, a student and three of her friends hauled in more than a dozen plants. The lot joined an assortment of others inside the Sustainability Office, including an ornamental pepper plant, a tiny succulent in a giraffe planter and Eric the moss ball.
Before they bid their plants adieu, students taped care instructions—water frequency, light exposure—to each pot and added their contact information and plant inventory to a Google doc for recordkeeping.
After collecting them all, Castellanos and the EcoReps sorted the vacationing plants by how much attention they require and matched them with the sitter who could meet the need.
The crew then delivered the plants to their respective hosts.
After sitting five plants last year, Aimee Bahng, associate professor of Gender & Women’s Studies, upped her responsibility to eight this time around.
“I like to think about the worlds these plants otherwise inhabit,” Bahng says. “Maybe they bring students some joy during stressful times, some grounding when the world around them feels so unmoored. And maybe I get to play some small role in keeping that ember of joy alive, even when the odds often feel stacked against us.”
Once back on campus in the new year, students will schedule a time to retrieve their plants.
While Castellanos is set to graduate in a few months, her Plant Babysitters Club will endure, thanks in large part to the EcoReps and the templates she has created for whomever takes over the program next year.
“Plants are very popular amongst college students,” Castellanos says, “and for me, I grew up spending a lot of time in a garden and in green spaces, so I really cherished that time with the dirt. On a college campus, we don’t have backyards where we can plant a garden, so we get to do that in our dorm rooms.”
“There’s something very special about seeing a plant grow and knowing your hard work is paying off,” she adds.