From construction worker to plant artist, how plants helped his mental health

Before the pandemic, Jesse Monstera was a concrete construction worker, always mad and depressed. That was before plants started to nurture his life. 

“With concrete, my world was just gray. I never saw no texture, no color,” Monstera said. “When I got into succulents and plants, just the color, the texture ... to me, it was like art.”

With encouragement from his family, Monstera left the gray world of concrete and started working with plants. His daughter Genevieve Aleman also collaborates with him and together they coordinate workshops and help people choose the best plants for their home or business. 

Their portable plant store is called “Succs 2 B You” because when Monstera was a concrete worker for 25 years, people would yell that at him as he worked on sidewalks. “I would be working on a sidewalk, on a street somewhere and they would yell, ‘sucks to be you!’,” so he found a way to use that in his new venture. 

Aleman, 21, said they started the business four years ago, when the pandemic upended their lives like so many. 

“I was supposed to graduate that year,” she said about graduating high school, “It was a time where everybody was put on pause and had to stay home. So the only things that were open were like trails and nurseries and botanical gardens and things like that.”

Aleman said it made her realize how important it was to be connected to nature. That’s when they started making videos on social media and spreading the word about connecting with nature and plants. 

“When people buy plants, it’s not just about buying plants, it’s always about maybe someone had passed away or someone was sick, so we started talking to people and teaching them about plants, but also teach them about the health benefits of what plants can do for us,” Monstera said. They hope to have a storefront one day and also use it as an art gallery.   

The workshops “give the person that's in our class a little Zen time,” Monstera said. 

Monstera will be holding a workshop at Tio’s Tacos in Riverside this Saturday at 3:30. “Other Latino businesses go out of their way to help us,” he said about holding workshops in other establishments like Martin Sanchez's taqueria and sculpture garden. “They see that we're positive, that we're trying to bring some help to everybody in the community.”

After Aleman graduated high school, she decided to go into business for herself and also has marketing clients, does photography and even dog sitting. She said she tries to find ways to work for herself and also help her dad with the portable plant store. 

When asked how plants help our mental health, Monstera said “that feeling that you get when you get flowers is a feeling that you should always get in your life and having plants around, that’s something that you're always getting.” He described that feeling that people can get when they see a new leaf or a new flower growing from the result of them taking care of that plant, of watering and talking to the plant. 

“You should see the difference between a blank room compared to a room that has greenery in it,” Aleman said that she can see the difference when they take plants into a business, not just visually, but also how it purifies the air. 

She said plants can also help when you’re feeling depressed, even by just watering them. “You're sitting there watering your plants instantly, like, you water the first one, second one, you start feeling better, because now you're being productive, you're doing something for yourself or your plant. And it kind of pulls you out of what your funk was beforehand.”

The workshop class lasts an hour and a half and he provides all of the materials and goes step by step on how to take care of each plant. They also hold classes in Moreno Valley and in Casa Blanca, where Monstera grew up in Riverside. He said that even though it was a rough neighborhood, he was able to have positive role models thanks to the nonprofit Casa Blanca Home of Neighborly Service, so he tries to give back to the neighborhood as well.  

Monstera said one of his favorite things is to give plants to kids. “If I see a kid that's interested, I'll go out and give a little kid a plant. Reason for that is [that] I became a better person in a little bit of years through plants, but if they learn plants at an early age, I mean, they will change the world. These kids can be a lot better.”