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So you’re in the market for a pet? Perhaps some companionship to help brighten your day after work, or to maximize your chill? Dogs, cats, and mice are the traditional favorite, sure, but if this is your first pet-buying experience, then you may want to start slow. Dogs can be high energy but messy to clean up after. Cats are independent, but its the rare feline who lets you know they love you; they’re all temperamental in this blogger’s opinion. If this is starting to sound like a lot of work, Greenscape Geeks would like to offer you an alternative. What about a pet that is always outside, requires only water, and cleans up after itself? Well, if you want to flood your friends’ Instagram feeds as they do yours, you should consider starting a native plant pet garden!

Think of the benefits:

• No shot or vaccine upkeeps necessary, and the price you pay at the register is almost always cheaper than an adoption fee!
• There is no costly or intrusive pet microchip to locate if the poor animal gets lost. Your plant stays put and is easy to find, 24/7.
• This pet can stay outside all the time in the rain or sun, and the only muddy prints it will leave are probably from your boots when you planted it!
• It comes pre-trained with tricks like sit and stay! It’s going to be extremely difficult to teach black-eyed Susans to fetch your newspaper, but if you manage it, let us know before you contact the national news!
• This pet can bring you joy with beautiful blooms, but with necessary pollen for the other insects and critters to spread in the wild. It’s a shared pet experience that benefits everything.
• Plant pets come in different sizes too! Consider grabbing a marsh blazing star or a common milkweed for something you can really grow into, they get to be around 3 feet tall.
• Last, but not least, kids love to get involved with flowers when they see how blue wild indigo can attract friendly, round bumblebees in the spring. They get to see their plant pet play with other living things without even moving.

Whether you’re looking for a breed now in the fall or at the first sign of spring, native plants are great for your environment! Sure it may be a bit silly to think of a plant as a pet, but consider starting a trend in your neighborhood to get people used to the idea of growing beautiful plant varieties that thrive with the local ecology.

You could even take your plants for a walk to make the neighbors jealous…

Err, maybe not.

Reach out to Greenscape Geeks for any potentially pertinent plant pet propositions.

Greenscape Geeks is a central Indiana landscape architecture and landscape design, construction, and lawn maintenance company, serving Indianapolis (including Meridian Kessler, Herron Morton, Williams Creek, and Irvington), Carmel, Noblesville, Fishers, and Zionsville.