Creator: Milo
Publisher: Tapas
WHAT IS IT?
An informative and silly guide to plant nerddom grounded in personal experience.
Think Sarah Scribbles meets The Farmer’s Almanac.
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
(Minor spoilers)
Milo is a plant nerd. Her apartment is filled with tropical house plants and succulents. Each episode of Extreme Gardener features an aspect of gardening or plant care that Milo has struggled with and learned to manage.
Milo usually opens the episode with personal anecdotes featuring recurring characters like her roommate, her mom, her dog, and other plant nerd friends. Following that, Milo adds detailed and helpful tips and tricks for keeping house plants alive and happy.
WHAT WORKS?
Milo’s comedic timing is excellent and each informational element is succinctly and clearly explained.
The art is cute and matches the tone. The personifications of the plants are the most delightful bit, adding a lot of personality to what is usually considered an inanimate object.
The colors are simple to match the pared-down art style, while still clearly communicating each plant’s unique vibe.
The letters for the most part share the same font across narration, mostly depending on size and color to add variety. This gives the comic a nice sense of cohesion.
Extreme Gardener works well as a beginner’s guide to plant parenting, and the inclusions of Milo’s failures, as well as her successes, are encouraging, especially if you’ve sent a plant or two of your own to the garden in the sky.
Some chapters end in letters from fans asking questions about their own houseplants, and Milo gives kind and helpful answers while maintaining that there are a lot of factors that go into plant care.
Occasionally, Milo includes actual photos of her plants to illustrate a point or prove she isn’t exaggerating. These little peeks into her real plant life are always fun to see.
WHAT DOESN’T WORK?
Occasionally information and anecdotes will overlap, which can make things repetitive.
Sometimes the chapters will stretch the premise a bit, like a chapter on framing simulator video games, but Milo’s writing and art are fun to read regardless.
WHY SHOULD I READ IT?
The world of houseplants and their care can be incredibly overwhelming. When you search for advice, you’ll find YouTube videos of people sitting in their lush gardens or with a backdrop of their shelf of carefully maintained houseplants telling you how easy it is to care for whatever poor plant you’re determined not to kill this time.
That is not what you’ll find in Extreme Gardener. Milo is a dedicated plant parent, but on her journey to expertise, she’s killed many a plant. Many Extreme Gardener episodes feature cute little plant ghosts departing from this world because she over or underwatered or made the mistake of leaving her succulents where the birds could get at them. But, there are also victories. Milo proves that these skills can be learned, and provides tips and tricks with fun and cute art. Even if you’re not interested in houseplants, the humor of the comics alone is worth the read (Warning though: this comic will make you want to buy a plant).
Whether you’ve got a green thumb or you kill every plant that enters your home, Extreme Gardener is sure to grow on you!
WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
If you like the writing:
Extreme Dog Owner by Milo
How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You by The Oatmeal
Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh
If you like the art:
The Beauty and the Brawn by Magic mangnani XXL
Sarah Scribbles by Sarah Andersen
My Giant Nerd Boyfriend by fishball
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Milo (@magic_mangnani) – Creator
Milo’s dog, Som, appears in both Extreme Dog Owner and Extreme Gardener.
Milo also writes BL under the pen name Magic mangnami XXL.
HOW DO I READ IT?
Click one of these:
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