Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow.

Hurston’s line suggests an intimate, almost reciprocal relationship between people and their surroundings: the domestic landscape (trees, houseplants, gardens) comes to mirror the temperament, habits, and care of those who live among it. Read figuratively, it implies that environments are not neutral backdrops but expressive extensions of human life—shaped by attention, neglect, taste, and emotional climate. It also carries a folkloric, animistic tint consistent with Hurston’s interest in vernacular ways of seeing the world, where nature is observant and responsive. The remark can be taken as social commentary as well: communities imprint themselves on place, and place in turn reflects community character.