Six years ago, Leslie Morris thought she couldn’t keep a houseplant alive.
Today, about 650 plants fill nearly every room of her south Napa home, and Morris spends part of each week helping care for plants in homes and businesses as a plant specialist with the downtown business Riza Plants.
The transformation began in 2020 with a single Monstera left behind by a friend. At first “I literally ignored it,” Morris admitted.
But after Morris started watering it regularly, “it got so beautiful,” she recalled. Maybe she wasn’t doomed when it came to growing plants, she thought.
Her collection really took off after her father, an avid gardener from Southern California, visited and bought her a few houseplants from Home Depot. To her surprise, she kept them alive. Soon afterward, she discovered Riza Plants in downtown Napa and became a regular customer.
Morris, who previously worked in the restaurant industry, started reading and studying how to grow plants. As she became more knowledgeable, her enthusiasm caught the attention of Riza Plants’ owner, Alyssa Piombo.
Piombo described Morris as someone with a “passion for plants” – an importrant trait, she said, because there is always something new to learn about growing plants, whether for home or work.
Plant failures aren’t uncommon, but when that happens, people often give up, according to Piombo.
“A lot of people did that during the pandemic” when plant sales surged amid stay-home orders, she said. “They realized how much work (plants) are, and they downsized. Leslie never downsized. She did the opposite.”
Piombo had a proposal for Morris: Would she like a part-time job taking care of Riza Plants’ business clients?
For about the past three years, Morris has traveled from customer to customer and business to business, taking care of their plants. She spends about 20 hours a week on the job.
Morris’ job as a traveling plant maintenance consultant is a key one within Riza. The service includes watering, trimming, shining, rotating – everything involved in caring for plants at home and business clients.
“If anyone can keep 600 plants alive, I want someone like that on my team,” said Piombo, praising Morris’ attention to detail. “She’s also very nurturing and compassionate, and she has amazing time management skills and organizational skills.”
A house where every room is alive
Morris greeted a recent visitor to her south Napa home wearing a plant-print jumpsuit and dangling plant earrings. Besides the 650 houseplants, plant pillows, a plant rug, plant drink coasters and plant artwork also adorn the home.
And then there are the plants — plants here, plants there, plants everywhere. Thanks to LED lights, plants are even growing in normally dark corners on the stairs. Only one room, a narrow closet, is without a plant.
Morris’ living room has the most plants. Leaves in every shape and shade of green, and some flowers, fill the entire space. One corner has plants stacked several feet deep. There are plants on the furniture, floor, walls and ceiling.
When Piombo first visited Morris’ home, she was amazed. “I almost got emotional,” said Piombo.
Morris doesn’t just have easy-to-raise plants at her home, Piombo added.
“She’s got the hard ones, the rare ones, the high-maintenance ones,” he said. “I’ve never been to a space that looks that incredible.”
Decorative signs on display spell out Morris’ love of plants. “Emotional Support Plant (do not pet),” reads one. “There’s like a lot of plants in here …” reads another.
Morris estimates that, working one room at a time, she spends up to two hours a day watering and caring for her green companions.
Jugs of water are stashed in various rooms so she’s always ready to start watering. Letting tap water sit before using it allows chlorine and other chemicals to dissipate, she explained.
Plants like humidity, so she’s added humidifiers and other monitors around the home to track humidity levels and temperatures. In a normal home, the humidity might run around 40%. Morris keeps the humidity in her home at 65%.
To avoid stressing her plants, Morris is careful not to overheat the home. She’d rather be a bit chilly because it’s better for her plants.
“I have a lot of jackets,” she said.
Her husband, Stuart Morris, said he’s not a plant person, “which is ironic considering my house has 650 plants.”
“Apparently, I’m breathing amazing air – at least that’s what everyone keeps telling me,” he wrote.
“At the beginning of this plant collecting (hoarding), I did tell her no more plants, but then I realized how happy it made her, so I went to Trader Joe’s and bought her a plant,” Morris wrote.
His favorite plant at their home is one that he named Jumanji because it reminds him of a plant hat Robin Williams wore in the 1995 movie. “But, it’s definitely not my plant,” he added.
Because the home uses solar power and LED lights, Leslie Morris said her PG&E bill hasn’t skyrocketed. She also adds self-watering devices to some plants.
Morris said that if she needs to be away from her home for a week or less, she can water many of her plants in advance, and they’ll survive. However, if she left the home for more than a week, she’d need help watering.
Hoyas are Morris’ favorite plants and the largest part of her collection.
“I have over 100 different hoyas,” she said, explaining that she loves their variety of leaf shapes, colors and textures, along with the smell of the flowers. Morris also enjoys collecting monsteras and philodendrons, especially unusual and rare varieties. It’s hard to choose a favorite because “it changes all the time,” she said.
Morris said she has struggled with ferns, which she described as requiring more humidity and attention than many other houseplants. She researches what the plant needs and is willing to try again if she thinks she can improve its growing conditions.
“I’ll usually give a plant about three tries,” she said. “If I kill it three times, then it’s probably not for me.”
Not every plant fits every home, Morris said. Rather than forcing a plant to survive, she prefers varieties that match her home’s environment and the care she can provide.
“Every plant is different,” she said, noting that even two plants of the same variety can behave differently.
Morris said successful plant care starts with three basics: “light, water, location.”
While many beginners focus on watering, “light is the biggest thing,” she said, because even well-watered plants will struggle without enough light.
Rather than watering on a schedule, Morris recommends checking the soil with a moisture meter first. “Most plants would rather be dry than wet,” she said.
She also cautions against automatically moving plants into larger containers. Oversized pots can hold too much moisture and increase the risk of root rot. Some plants, including monsteras, are perfectly happy being root-bound for a while, she said.
Many people think they don’t have a green thumb, but that doesn’t have to be true, according to Morris: “Just be consistent.”
For Morris, the collection is about more than filling her home with greenery.
“It’s so calming, and I feel like the older I get, that’s like more what I need,” she said.
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