Cooper-Young residents and other Memphians swapped freshly cut houseplants, herbs, flowers and more at the Cooper-Young Community Association (CYCA) office Wednesday, July 27, for their first in-person “plant swap” since 2019.

Combining community engagement and horticulture, the CYCA plant swap at 2298 Young Ave. allows local community members to trade not only houseplant clippings but tips and tricks on gardening. 

Plant swap participants bring in cuttings from their own houseplants or garden placed in water-filled glass jars and water bottles, envelopes or plastic bags, and are then free to select any other donated plant in exchange.

A garden walk grows in Cooper-Young

Amanda Yarbro-Dill is the executive director of the CYCA and was the brainchild for the plant swap project.

Yarbro-Dill said after CYCA hosted a “clothing swap” in 2018 with a similar concept which was extremely successful, she began thinking up other events that would benefit residents and community engagement. 

“We’ve had only one in-person plant swap, in 2019,” Yarbro-Dill said. “It honestly coincided with me getting into house plants, and lots of people have been getting more into house plants.”

Yarbro-Dill said once COVID hit in 2020, a “porch plant swap” was initiated in 2021 for social distancing, allowing neighbors to pick plant clippings off residents’ front porches instead of face-to-face.

Yarbro-Dill said the in-person plant swap is part of her ongoing effort to make Cooper-Young a fun place to live and visit. 

Cooper-Young Garden Walk features garden inspiration, education

“I like to do these things in a thrifty and family-friendly way,” Yarbro-Dill said. “Events like the plant swap are good ways of connecting people and making relationships that you might not automatically have.” 

Yarbro-Dill added the plant swap is a great way for those with common interests in gardening throughout Cooper-Young to develop in-person social networks.

“You get a lot of nice socializing because you have a lot of plant people together talking about what they like, don’t like, what works for them, share knowledge — that kind of thing,” Yarbro-Dill said. 

Cassie Dean, 33, is an executive assistant for Indigo Agriculture. Her hands full with a bountiful tray of plant clippings springing out of water-filled glass Mason jars, Dean said when her friends heard about the plant swap, they notified her immediately as she is a bona fide plant lover. 

Central Gardens invites visitors on a Detour

“I keep bringing my plants to the theater — I do a lot of theater — and I’ll bring plants,” Dean said. “But people take enough of them, and I just keep propagating.”

Houseplant propagation uses existing plants to make new plants. Various methods including stem-cutting, in which the cut is placed in a glass jar of water; leaf-cutting, using leaves with a small stem intact to plant directly in soil; dividing and air-layering. 

“I brought pothos, pilea, elephant bush,” Dean said. “Pothos is like the easiest plant. A lot of things are a variation of it. Plants that trail downward love humidity — you can put them in your bathroom, they’re so easy.”

Dean noted the pothos she brought has a particularly special significance.

“The pothos I propagated is from my great-grandmother, from her original pothos plant,” Dean said. “We continued to clip it over the years and grow more plants. It’s amazing.” 

Facebook group leads to micro-giving community

Dean said when she began to work from home during the pandemic, adding house plants made her new work environment eco-friendlier and more appealing. 

“I’ve been working from home since 2020, so putting that greenery in my space really changed my home life for me,” Dean said. “Then I got really crazy about it, and now I actually have 45 house plants. I’ve officially run out of windowsill space.”

While Dean loves house plants, she shared an interesting fact about the resilience of orchids. 

“If orchids die, they come back. I threw away a lot of them when I didn’t know that,” Dean said. “Usually, a point of the stem will brown, and you clip it there, continue to water them, they will grow different offshoots and they will bloom back through. It’s really cool.”

Memphis Mushroom Festival combines education and fun

Paul Cooper is a 35-year resident of Cooper-Young and is a Santa Claus for Bass Pro Shop Memphis.

Making a total of four trips in and out of the CYCA headquarters, Cooper brought in some of the night’s biggest potted plants. 

“I brought milk and wine lilies because we just have so many of them at home, and the lilies smell so nice,” Cooper said. “And these four o’clocks — they’re on daylight savings time, but they’re great because they just bust open at about 5:30 p.m. It’s so pretty.”

Cooper said individuals should practice gardening as a soothing and enjoyable activity but says not to be afraid to get your hands dirty to develop a good green thumb.

“Gardening is very therapeutic,” Cooper said. “Gardeners aren’t ashamed of their dirty fingernails; we know where to go wash ‘em. During the day, we’re out there digging in the yard, and we just love it.”