In this edition of Plantfluencer Stories – we hear from Brooklyn-based plant kween and community builder Christopher Griffin.
Christopher, how did you get into plants?
My name is Christopher, West Philadelphia born and raised, and local plant nurseries is where I spent most of my days. I am a plant enthusiast, collector and community builder, better known as Plant Kween, hunty!!! Currently, based in Brooklyn, I have a plant fam of 110 and I don’t plan on stopping there, dahling! I share my botanical adventures to plant shops, botanical gardens and other green spaces via social media, as a personal method of self-care, joy-sharing, and community-building. My mission is to continue to build a diverse online community of plant kweens, daddies, mamas and everyone in between; create greater visibility as a Black queer femme existing in green spaces; and just share the joy + happiness plants have brought into my life.
About three years ago, I moved into a cute, but cold and sterile apartment. If you know this kween well, you’d know that she is all about warmth, bright colors, and LIFE! So I decided to skip on over to my neighborhood Home Depot to shop for a plant. I had always been afraid of buying plants because I knew I would be devastated if I had killed it (she’s over that now). My grandmother was really into gardening, and I never thought that I could live up to her green thumb goddessness. But, the apartment was tragically boring and lifeless so I decided to take a gamble.
Tell us about your Instagram feed:
Ended up buying a pothos that needed a lil TLC, hunty. She was the most unique pothos in the bunch, so I knew she was the one for me. Took her home, repotted her and made a deal with myself. If I could keep this plant alive and it thrived, I would buy more plants.
Hunty, when I tell you she grew! She grew! And so I started investigating other plant shops, doing research on how to take care of my growing plant fam, and started documenting my botanical fascination via Instagram.
At first, I didn’t want to appear in any of my photos because I thought the plants were the most important thing to photographically document. But then I realized that I wanted to document my happiness and joy, and share that with the world, especially as a Black queer femme.
And so three years later, this plant kween has 100+ green gurls, has went on numerous botanical adventures, has learned a ton about plant care, has connected and built friendships with brilliantly beautiful plant people... and she’s overjoyed that she gets to share all of this with her online plant community.
P.S. Follow Christopher's plant parenthood journey on Instagram.
