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When Michael Hathaway’s marriage ended over a decade ago, his mother gifted him a pothos plant.

“She’s like, ‘You need something to take care of in this dingy apartment,’” Hathaway remembered.

The viney plant with heart-shaped leaves grew and grew. Hathaway pruned it, but didn’t want to throw away the cuttings. He read about propagation and learned how to encourage the cuttings to grow new roots.

Suddenly, his mother’s gift had multiplied. He gave the little plants to family and friends, until everyone had one.

“They were like, ‘We don’t need any more plants, Mike,’” he said.

Now, Hathaway is giving away cuttings of pothos, jade, oxalis and other plants to strangers in a yellow-painted plant library box behind his home in Northeast Philadelphia’s Winchester Park neighborhood.

Since he built the box in early July, he said neighbors and visitors have taken over 100 baby plants and cuttings, some even leaving their own plants.

“My goal is everybody gets a piece of the plant that my mom gave me,” he said.

Like a Little Free Library, but for plants

Hathaway got the idea for the free plant box while travelling to an art class in the city’s Mount Airy neighborhood. His bus was detoured, so he walked a different route than usual and came across a little library.

“Then I walked by another one and then a third one, and I’m like, ‘Wow, this is cool. What can I do that’ll be a little different?’” he said. “There’s nothing like it in the Northeast [section of Philadelphia]. If I walk around the neighborhood, nobody’s giving anything away.”

At the time, Hathaway’s basement was full of 50 small oxalis plants — propagations from another gift from his mother. So he decided to give them away.

He built the box using a little library kit. His niece helped him paint it yellow with flowers, a bumblebee and a picture of Pikachu. “What’s cooler than Pikachu?” Hathaway said.

The box is located on the edge of a small garden where Hathaway has grown pepino melons, chickpeas, sunchokes, green beans and cabbage since an eye condition that affects his vision forced him to retire early a few years ago from a career in packaging printing. The box is also a geocache.

“I just want to have a little fun, a little whimsy,” he said. “You know what I mean? Let’s have a little whimsy.”

All of the plants and cuttings in Hathaway’s box are free.

“Everybody always wants something,” he said. “Like, I don’t want anything. Come get your damn plants.”

‘It brings people together’

Rancis Fermon travelled from Elkins Park with her two children, ages 5 and 6, to visit the plant box Wednesday.

Fermon, a gardener who has a “jungle” of house plants at home, learned about the box from one of Hathaway’s videos on Instagram. She brought three of her own plant cuttings to share, including a small “Swiss cheese” monstera.

She and Hathaway chatted for a few minutes before swapping plants. She said the free plant box “brings people together.”

“I don’t think … I would have had the guts to approach him and just start a conversation,” Fermon said.

A free plant box becomes a plant swap

Fermon said she plans to come back to the plant box and share more of her cuttings.

Hathaway said another visitor brought a “golden-speckled something” he’d never seen before, which he plans to propagate. He said more donations will help him keep the project going.

Come fall, Hathaway hopes to organize an in-person plant swap.

“I’m getting a lot of followers,” he said. “I just got to find a venue to do it.”