I thought I would be strategic in how I packed my plants and how far in advance I’d start refreshing the pest maintenance and the whole nine yards for the move……but it didn’t happen.

It didn’t even come CLOSE to being a top priority honestly. The plants were on my mind the entire time let me clarify, but I had more important things to take care of.

I knew I wanted to add more systemic pest granules again, so three weeks before the move I sprinkled some granules in after a watering. I wanted to give the plant time to absorb the pest control to combat potential pest during their four day road trip, ahaha.

I believe I added the pest granules to every planter, but in the end I didn’t care. I did however make sure all the plants besides the rainbow hedgehog cactus was watered two days before we started the road trip.

When it came to packing them up I thought at first I’d put them into cardboard boxes, but I didn’t love how it was turning out. While out shopping I took some empty product boxes from Walmart that had individual pockets and thought they would work great for my smaller plants.

So I practiced boxing them all up a couple of times and finally decided to put most of them in laundry boxes and it went way smoother. I added plastic grocery bags as space filler or bubble wrap to protect the ceramic pots from touching, and for the very small planters, use the Walmart product boxes which was fantastic!  I only lost a peace lily leaf and one branch from the thanksgiving cactus.

The peace lily, yucca, and the avocado plant sat in the backseat. The yucca was causing trouble the entire first day but we managed.

By the end of the first day, and after being attacked twice by the yucca, the avocado plant seems wilty. Everyone else appeared to be doing fine. They stayed in the car overnight and it was a low of 71.

The next day went by ten times smoother, but definitely hotter as I drove west. After the last toll section, I realized I was going to be at the hotel by 5pm, and it was still very hot out. I thought about bringing my plants into the hotel, but decided against it. I moved my car to a shaded section of the hotel, and from there every hour I’d go down for 10-20 minutes and just blast the AC on cold. It seemed to work!

Then the worst happened. On the third day my AC went out and we were getting into Albuquerque, NM. I was stressed as I drove at 75mph with my windows down, and moving blankets thrown over my plants. We got to the final hotel and moved the plants into the room. Most were flappy and I watered them after a half hour, especially the peace lily and the avocado plant. The rest of the plants besides the cacti and succulents got a very light watering.

My husband troubleshooted a couple of things on the car but to no avail. I helped take things apart and hold things or looked up some stuff. We called our dads too! So we decided to get up at 1am to leave by 2am to get into Phoenix somewhat early. By the time we got back to the hotel, ate dinner, and showered it was 9:30pm…..

My husband is not a morning person and he did better at driving than I after or first break!  I had to stretch and walk for a minute plus get a coffee to really wake up.  Proud of that man!

Got into Phoenix earlier than expected and the apartment leasing office wasn’t opened yet. Que the anxiety building slowly as I tried to keep my plants from overheating in 96 degree weather at 8:45am.

I cried somewhat while I ate breakfast at IHOP from sheer lack of sleep, heat exhaustion, and just anxiety from the road trip compiled together for the perfect storm. I tried shoveling French toast with blueberries into my mouth thinking it may stop me from crying harder.

Anyways, we got the keys to the apartment an hour later and moved the plants into the new place immediately. The only one that I was concerned about was the avocado plant which is slowly bouncing back.

Kuddos to my yucca and rattlesnake plant though. Both look like they are still in the old apartment and not bothered at all!

I’m hoping to move some of the hardier plants out to the balcony by the end of this week after they are adjusted to the sun inside. The balcony railing gives enough shade that they should be okay!

I’m so excited for new plants. I gotta go slow though. It’s not a race. I am constantly reminding myself of this, ahaha. My husband mentioned he wanted a palm Christmas tree this year and I want to get one for him, ahaha.