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Looking down at a pothos plant, seniors Richard Xue and Jihoon Im pick out which plant cutting they want to take home. Each student who came to the library’s plant swap left with a cutting to grow themselves.
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Finding the right place to cut, Co-Librarian KatieAnn Prescott takes a cutting of a houseplant. After cutting each plant, Ms. Prescott placed it in a bag or cup before handing it off to a waiting student.
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Looking at the table of different plants, Julia Gray ’28 listens to Co-Librarian KatieAnn Prescott explain what types of plants are available to choose. At the beginning of B lunch, many students crowded around the table to look at the choices.
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Explaining how to care for the houseplants, Co-Librarian KatieAnn Prescott shows a pothos cutting to Spanish teacher MilyBett Llanos-Gremillion. Ms. Llanos-Gremillion brought her own snake plant to swap at the library event.
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Placing a pothos cutting into a bag, Co-Librarian KatieAnn Prescott converses with Chaarukeshini Arunkumar ’27. The plant swap gave students the opportunity to connect over a love of plants and start conversations with new people.
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Looking towards Co-Librarian KatieAnn Prescott, sophomores Mahi Singh and Lalithya Reddy listen to instructions about the houseplants. Singh took home an orchid cutting brought in by her English teacher, Ms. Amber Brown.
Experienced plant parents and beginner gardeners gathered around a small table covered in potted plants and cuttings in the library on Friday, Jan. 9 during both lunches. There, they learned about each of the different houseplants and chose one to take home and grow themselves. The event gave students the opportunity to connect over their shared interest in plants.
“[We hosted the Plant Swap] in celebration of National Houseplant Day, but also I think plants are a great way to make connections and have conversations with people,” Co-Librarian KatieAnn Prescott said. “It’s just a great way to break barriers, because whether you are trying out a new hobby or you are a seasoned plant person, it’s a great way for people to share common interests.”
As students arrived, Ms. Prescott invited them to look over the different houseplants on the table and choose a cutting, a piece of a parent plant that will grow into an independent plant. The choices included pothos, small-leafed spiderwort, an orchid, and a snake plant.
“The majority of the plants came from my house,” Ms. Prescott said. “Since COVID, I started collecting plants, and from there I’ve just basically gathered as many plants from my house that I could bring to school. We had a couple of other teachers donate some plants too.
After students selected their plant, Ms. Prescott used scissors to take a cutting and place it in a bag for safe-keeping as they carried it throughout school and then home. She explained instructions for the care each plant needs to thrive when replanted in a new place.
“[I chose] an orchid [that] my English teacher, Ms. [Amber] Drown, brought,” Mahi Singh ‘28 said. “[My bedroom] has a really big window, so I needed some houseplants.”
Along with recent library-hosted events, such as the gingerbread house contest and Japanese calligraphy class, the plant swap brought students into the library who may not choose to visit otherwise and helped achieve the librarians’ goal to foster connection within the Westwood community.
“We know that not everybody is necessarily coming to the library in order to check out books,” Ms. Prescott said. “We want different types of kids coming in, and we know that with plants, that brings in kids that probably have never come into the library before to experience what great things we’re doing in here, and hopefully they’ll come back.”
Along with helping people find their way to the library, the event cultivated a sense of belonging for the participants. Students bonded over their new plants and stuck around to learn more, providing a chance to take a break from the stress of academics.
“Kids don’t necessarily come to school because they absolutely love math class, right?” Ms. Prescott said. “We know that they’re coming to school to socialize and to make connections and to feel like they belong. We hope that the events that we have in the library are having kids feel a sense of belonging here.”
