Replying to my own post with my experience loving a plant.

The air in prison is cool and dry. We don't have access to larger pots. We only get partial sun for a few hours through our little cell window.

Keeping a plant alive means improvising materials to fix the cheap pot, curating every stem and leaf like a bonsai tree to keep it small, and replacing soil.

Replacing soil isn't allowed. We'd be searched before we went outside, then again more thoroughly before coming back inside. But, a few inmates ran a "store". It's like Red from Shawshank, with predatory prices and interest, enforced with third party physical violence.

For my cellmate and myself, I bought a a pair of $20 phone cards from commissary to pay the store for enough soil to fill two pots. Then, I taught my cellmate that we could split the worm.