When it comes to plants, I have no will power, fer real. I can’t help myself. Last Friday the boys and I headed out to the garden store in search of replacement for some of the small house plants I’ve killed recently (see I’m not perfect). I really suck at keeping ferns alive but I like having them around. I’ve come to terms with the fact that about once a year I need to cut my losses and buy new ones to replace the old half-alive looking ones.

So I was at the garden store, looking for replacement ferns when I happened to walk by the full grown tree section to admire the fiddle leaf figs. This is something I always do, I’m in awe of the shapes the leaves take on and the way they reflect and absorb light. It’s so good.

My garden store always has different price points on the trees, they start at $36 for a 3′ plant and go up to $350 for a full size big daddy. The smaller plants are always pretty leafy and not manicured into tree shape yet. Then I stumbled upon a few fiddle leaf figs that had been pruned into an actual tree-ish shape and, get this, even had branches!

Now you may remember, I bought a small fiddle leaf fig this winter from Ikea – it’s doing great but there are two main stalks and it’s pretty leafy and bushy. It doesn’t really resemble that iconic plant you probably have seen everywhere these days (I’m a member of that bandwagon too). It’s thriving and doing well but I am terrified of pruning it.

After I first brought it home it had a serious melt down and was super mad at me. All of the leaves started to turn black and fall off, I was sure I had ruined it. In an effort to save it, I moved it to the sunniest room in my house, the upstairs porch, and propped it up in front of a window. Within weeks it was growing new leaves and now is pretty large in size.

I’ve read a lot about these plants and how spastic and finicky they are, I am kind of terrified of mine. I just recently figured out how much water it liked and when it wanted it. I’d really like to prune it but I think it would probably freak out and me again, and I don’t know if I could handle the stress.

Then I saw this perfect fiddle leaf fig tree at the garden store in the $36 pile of trees, and it was actually tree shaped and grown, and beautiful! I went back and forth as to whether or not I really needed to raise another tree in my house, where would I put it, what would I do with the other, will I kill it, will it be happy? In the end “logic” ruled out. I decided that even though I had no business buying a new tree, that this was okay. I compromised, I decided that I wouldn’t buy the ferns today, so therefore that was a savings, duh. Plus the old fiddle leaf fig only cost me $12, so it was really like a win-win instead of a lose-lose.

I couldn’t resist any longer, I put that tree in my cart and walked around a bit, and then, I did it. I went up to the checkout and and patiently waited for my turn in line. I almost put it back after my better judgement kicked it, but I quickly put all those reasonable thoughts aside. Then I heard the nice lady tell me the total, $19.99. Wha? It was on sale.

Now comes the hard part, where to put it?