A recorded discussion introducing Summer Rayne Oakes’s book How to Make a Plant Love You. Speakers praise Oakes’s plant-care expertise (noting her large New York/Brooklyn plant collection), describe the book’s practical guidance for indoor plant care, and emphasize its metaphorical message about placing people in environments where they can thrive. The tone is promotional and conversational.
Chapters
So the book that we are launching.
With is by Summer Rain Oakes. It's a book called how to Make.
A Plant Love youe. I met Summer many, many years ago.
We've been close friends for a while. And she has.
She's just a powerhouse and an optimist and a wonderful human being.
And.
And she has this fantastic idea about how to raise plants, how to look after plants. She's been featured in the press multiple times because she has, I don't remember, 100, 600 plants in her New York.
City apartment, in her Brooklyn apartment. And I've been there. I think it's up to seven.
I think it's up to 700. And it's an amazing place to visit.
You know, you sort of move the.
Vines out of the way to wash the dishes. You know, it's really fantastic. And she. These plants grow and thrive in. Inside her New York City apartment. And it's because it's not by luck. It's because she understands the plants and she understands where to put them and how to nurture them. And so we. The way we treat plants is we see a plant that we think is pretty and we think, ooh, it would look nice over there on that coffee table, and we buy the plant, we.
Put it on the coffee table, and the plant dies.
It's because we bought the plant that we wanted and put it where we wanted it. And the reality is you have to know where the plant wants to be.
Not where we want to put it.
And you have to put it in.
The place where it's more likely to thrive.
What I love about Summer's work is it's a metaphor because we do that with people. We take somebody, we put them in the job that we want them to do, and then we get frustrated that they don't succeed, and so we move them and they don't succeed again. But we never actually think to ask, where would they naturally thrive? What environment, what position, what job should we put that person in so that they'll do well? Though? Yes, on one level, Summer's book is actually what a wonderful book for people who want to know more about how.
To look after plants.
But there's really a very important and deep seated message contained within this book about how to treat people. Really, it's a big metaphor that if you learn how to take care of plants, how to make a plant love you, you're actually learning how to make.
People love you, how to make people fall in love with their jobs and each other.
It's just a wonderful. And it's so full of depth. And she's such a talented writer.
I couldn't think of a better book that I'd rather. I'd rather introduce the world to our imprint with.
