Have you ever gotten an apple from a Clemson dining hall and thought, “I could grow a tree from these seeds”? Me neither, but Kevin Halliday, a senior mechanical engineering student, has. The tree, first planted on a dorm room window in 2018, is now planted on Clemson’s campus, where it will continue to grow for years to come.
In the spring of his freshman year, Halliday found that one of the seeds in the Granny Smith apple he had taken from Schilletter Dining Hall had already begun to sprout. Out of curiosity, he took some soil from outside his dorm building and started to grow his sapling in his dorm room window. Then, disaster struck.
“I was watering this plant with my personal water bottle at the time,” Halliday said, “and after forgetting to clean the bottle after using Gatorade powder in it, the plant ended up dying.” The loss wasn’t too hard on Halliday, who was able to joke “electrolytes, funnily enough, are not what plants crave.”
That setback wasn’t the end of the project for Halliday, however. When he got back to campus for RA training his sophomore year, Halliday started the process again. The sapling was developing well during training when things took a turn for the worse once again during a game of catch in Halliday’s room. Despite his best efforts to protect his plant, which minutes before the group of RAs had named Planthony, Halliday watched as the seedling crashed to the floor, unable to be saved.
Out of remembrance for the lost plant, Halliday named his third attempt Planthony Jr. Soon after, Planthony Jr. was given an Instagram account. Halliday had been considering giving the tree a social media platform for a while, but finally decided to after watching a YouTube video.
“The idea to start an Instagram account for Planthony existed pretty early on in his growth, but didn’t come to fruition until Thanksgiving of 2018. Around that time I believe I watched the vlogbrothers video ‘The Broccoli Tree: A Parable’ which acted as a major inspiration that finally led to me creating his account.”
The video mentioned centers on the life of a Swedish tree that became famous after a man started an Instagram account, @thebroccolitree, for it.
Planthony Jr.’s account, @planthonyjr, boasts nearly 200 followers and highlights all of the tree’s adventures as documented by Halliday. The tree has attended RiSE plant night, been given a birthday party, hung out with the plastic flamingo mascot of the Tiger Band’s trumpet section, been carried to the top of Sassafras Mountain and has collaborated with Clemson skateboarding club for an unforgettable photo shoot with the club’s president Will Cooley, a sophomore computer science major.
“I ended up taking Will over to the Landscaping Services location where Planthony was being cared for to shoot some fun pics of Planthony shredding some wicked gnar around the facility,” Halliday said. “Those are still some of my favorite pictures I’ve taken of Planthony.”
Besides his exciting life, Planthony Jr. also uses his platform for activism, spreading awareness about the global water crisis and the Arbor Day Foundation. More recently, Planthony has reminded his followers to wear their masks and vote in the 2020 elections.
“The Planthony account for me has been a space where I have felt a bit more open to exercising creative freedoms, and I suppose it also serves as a space where I have felt more open to advocating for things I believe in,” Halliday said.
In order for Planthony to continue to live a healthy life, Halliday knew his plant would need to settle down somewhere. In October 2019, he emailed President Jim Clements about planting his friend on campus. He was directed to Tommy Fallaw, the director of Clemson Landscaping Services.
Halliday explained that “after meeting with Tommy, it was decided that Planthony would be moved to the Landscaping Services facility where he could become more acclimated to living outside.”
After much discussion with Fallaw, Emily Priest, who took care of Planthony at the Landscaping Services and Barry Anderson, Clemson’s landscape architect, it was decided that the tree would be planted on Nov. 17 along the pecan grove, where he will be cared for by Katie Daily. Halliday says that the planting was a highlight in the project.