[Book Sip] Taking Photos for Plant Insurance, Creating a Plant Memorial Monument...

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This is a plant essay by the plant YouTuber Apisto. He personally edited and published the story of filling more than half of his office space with aquatic plants, tropical plants, jungle plants, and more. He also created the illustrations himself. The book is filled with interesting stories. For example, when plants get sick, he takes photos of them while healthy as a kind of "plant insurance" to regain his initial resolve, or collects name tags of plants that have died to create a memorial monument. When rumors spread about a strange place on the 11th floor of a building covered with plants and people flocked there, he spent a year turning the entire space into a plant room. Rather than focusing on expensive rare plant information, the emphasis is on conveying affection for plants that can be nurtured steadily and for a long time. The book is full of so-called plant caretaker stories. It tells stories of people connected to plants, such as an author who rescues abandoned plants from a redevelopment site and a man who cultivates a 100-year-old Zelkova tree in his yard.

It was on Dongji Day (Winter Solstice) when the building’s communal heating system broke down. Tropical plants are especially vulnerable in winter, and if this cold wave continued for a few more days, all the plants would likely die from cold damage. I called the landlord.

“Sir, the plants are very cold. You need to fix the heating system quickly.”

“Oh dear, I don’t have money right now. How about bringing in an oil heater?”

“An oil heater on the 11th floor of an officetel building...?”

- From 'Symbiosis in the Jungle'

I was sure Sarawak was a famous plant collector or a big player in the plant world on Borneo Island. Among them were people from Rinca, Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan. Then one day, I began to strongly doubt their names. That was because their names were actually from Thailand, Vietnam, and Peru. Only then did I realize my ignorance. Sarawak was not a big player in the plant world but the name of a state located on the Malaysian part of Borneo Island.

- From 'My Tropics, My Sarawak'

When the old leaves in my terrarium turn yellow, I don’t remove them but cut them into small pieces and sprinkle them back onto the soil. This substitutes for the role of humus in nature, where fallen leaves decompose and create nutrients. Although it is an artificial cycle, returning dead leaves to the soil is the minimum courtesy I can offer to plants living away from their natural habitat.

- From 'When Terrarium Leaves Wilt'

First Plants | Apisto (Shin Juhyun) | Media Saem | 248 pages | 17,800 KRW