Want to revive your dead plants? Here's a neat trick

One woman's social media posts have led many to believe that her green thumb can help "revolutionize" how people bring dead plants back to life.

 Dead plants in a pot (photo credit: CREATIVE COMMONS)
Dead plants in a pot
(photo credit: CREATIVE COMMONS)

What do you do when your plants die? Do you just throw them away? There's really nothing else you can do with them, right?

Perhaps there is hope. Don't get rid of your dead plants - yet. People who tend to kill their plants have come up with a plant-saving method to revive them. One plant parent and social media user, Lisa Harvey, shared a post showing her creative solution to restoring a dying plant in her garden and encouraged viewers to try it themselves.

Lisa Harvey of Surrey, England, was tired of the plants in her garden "dying all the time" and wanted to find a cheap and effective way to combat the problem, Jam Press reported. The 45-year-old mother decided that the best way to keep her plants green and healthy-looking was not to try to revive them with water or plant food - but to paint over her problems - that is, to paint her pale plants green with simple spray paint.

Think this is a stupid solution? Just look at the results. Harvey sprayed two brittle brown plants in her garden with some green paint and it worked wonders.

The post showing a "before and after" picture has gained more than 10,000 likes. "I came up with this idea because I'm not very good at keeping my plants alive," said Harvey, who works with children with special needs. She told NeedtoKnow, "I have fake plastic plants and flowers, but these were the only two real ones in my back garden and they're both dead, so it saves me trying to get the plants out of the pots. I decided to get spray paint and see if that works."

 Coloring plants with paint is a creative way to revive them. (credit: SCREENSHOT/WALLA!)
Coloring plants with paint is a creative way to revive them. (credit: SCREENSHOT/WALLA!)

She added, "My husband thought I was crazy, but it's also so fast. It didn't take me long and I also had some of the paint left in the can." According to her, it is also an economical solution. "The paint cost a little more than 4 pounds (about 18 NIS) and it would have cost me more to buy two new plants."

An outpouring of support for an unconventional method

After sharing her special solution, Harvey was flooded with encouraging responses. "What an idea... I should do it on my lawn, where my dogs destroyed it," one wrote. Another added, "You already know what I'm going to do this weekend. Just need about 10 cans of paint and I'm set." Another laughed: "We'll see you post this tip in a gardening group."

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