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Houseplants


shedemei

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I aspire to be a good gardener, and once upon a time I was good at houseplants. However, I am full of fail. My last garden was overrun with aphids because I planted nasturtiums and didn't keep up with checking them, and my kale was eaten by aphids and/or snails. In my latest case of plant-related fail, I kept my houseplants in a lovely bay window in which they thrived. I didn't realize how cold it got there in winter until I moved the Schefflera and it dropped almost all of its leaves, which these plants do when stressed. It proceeded to drop all of them over the next week. It is also desperately in need of repotting.

 

Scheffleras recover from this, and as you can see in the picture this plant is starting to do so. However, it's going to look really sad for a long time.

IMG_20130301_192101.jpg

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once upon a time I was great with African Violets ... until I gave birth to my second son... well the poor thing died... in the most horrible way... I was too busy to water it for months... when I finally realized how hopeless it was it was just a dried out thing in a pot :P

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Oh my. :lol: Is that the kind of plant where pruning it would help encourage new growth?

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Mr. Minerva and I accidentally froze our bamboo, if it makes you feel better.

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I have been told I have a green(ish) thumb - I've got a ton of houseplants, including a 20-year-old maranta (prayer plant).

However. Since we moved to this house 2 years ago, and all the houseplants were put in the very nice basement with lots of windows, I've gone downhill. My snake plant (aka mother-in-law's tongue) and Chinese evergreen, both supposedly hardy plants, are looking kind of ill. I've killed a wandering jew, a Chinese evergreen, a couple of cacti and succulents, and an aloe plant, and I've got 8 pots of shamrocks (oxalis) that I'm hoping aren't really dead. The maranta is looking like crap too. And, the kicker - I've killed at least 8 mint plants. The ones that every plant book and catalog call "invasive and hard to kill." Apparently I'm a mint-killing prodigy or something. :)

I impressed half a dozen people at lunch when I told them I'd killed an aloe plant. They couldn't believe it.

On the other hand, the roses I got for Valentines day? Three of them have sprouted a lot new leaves, and I'm wondering if they'd root in dirt.

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I have a houseplant and it is so far alive after its first week in my house. Its a venus flytrap :)

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I can kill English Ivy just by threatening to bring it into my house. However the pothos I've had since I was a preteen is still alive and kicking and my spider plant that hangs out near the bathtub (aka where the cats use the loo(we don't use our master tub so I put the litter boxes in it...easy for clean up)) is trying to overrun the bathtub. It only gets indirect light AND is covered in litter dust. Go figure.

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I can kill English Ivy just by threatening to bring it into my house. However the pothos I've had since I was a preteen is still alive and kicking and my spider plant that hangs out near the bathtub (aka where the cats use the loo(we don't use our master tub so I put the litter boxes in it...easy for clean up)) is trying to overrun the bathtub. It only gets indirect light AND is covered in litter dust. Go figure.

I'll bet it likes getting all the fertilizers.

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I've killed mini roses, strawberries, and a host of other things. I also killed a cactus once because I watered too much, which is weird because my problem is not watering enough. Just planted cilantro, red bell pepper, jalapeño pepper, and cucumbers. We'll see how long that lasts. I even put an alarm on my phone so I don't forget to tend to the plants :lol:

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I tried growing basil last summer, the first plant died because I over-watered. The second plant died because I under-watered.

I gave up and bought a jar of dried at the supermarket. :icon-rolleyes:

Totally off topic: Is this the Sister Wives Smilie?

:romance-grouphug:

(I just found the more smilies).

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I've killed mini roses, strawberries, and a host of other things. I also killed a cactus once because I watered too much, which is weird because my problem is not watering enough. Just planted cilantro, red bell pepper, jalapeño pepper, and cucumbers. We'll see how long that lasts. I even put an alarm on my phone so I don't forget to tend to the plants :lol:

http://www.amazon.com/Claber-8454-Aquau ... hose+timer

This is my answer to living in the south and NEEDING a garden. It waters twice a day in the summer for 3 minutes. I have a drip hose around all the bases of the plants and a sprinkler in the middle. I still manage to kill everything (disease usually) except the tomatoes and cucumbers but atleast they dont die thirsty!

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Nice! I've been thinking of setting up a gravity-fed drip system for tomatoes this year.

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Venus flytrap has now got one brown dead looking head (luckily it has multiple ones). Little brother fed that head a piece of spicy sausage and I dont think it liked it.

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http://www.amazon.com/Claber-8454-Aquau ... hose+timer

This is my answer to living in the south and NEEDING a garden. It waters twice a day in the summer for 3 minutes. I have a drip hose around all the bases of the plants and a sprinkler in the middle. I still manage to kill everything (disease usually) except the tomatoes and cucumbers but atleast they dont die thirsty!

Thanks for the suggestion! Although, now that i think about it, since we have timed sprinklers maybe I'll just put the plants where they catch some of the sprinkler water and save myself the trouble. So far, I think I've been over watering, and the jalapeno seeds haven't sprouted, no matter how long I stare (i get a little obsessive, and tend to stare as if that'll make plants grow). I also planted some really old seeds I found in the garage. More like a science experiment, just to see what happens. More shit to fuck, I guess lol

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  • 1 month later...

I did some gardening work last weekend, so behold:

e9zqf8.jpg

All the houseplants I've killed in the past year or so. I forgot to empty the deceased occupants of the herb tower, so add 3 more large pots to that. And the Chinese evergreen in front isn't a lost cause, I just whacked the dead leaves off after I took this picture. Hopefully it will recover.

Two of my four bleeding hearts survived the winter (or the big drought last summer) and I planted one more. And I was surprised to find out that two of the three expensively tiny milkweed from last year also came back. I thought they were dead. I've got a box of new bulbs that need to be planted before they die (I've had them for a week, and it's sad that $50 of bulbs will fit in a shoebox) and the dahlias are sprouting in the bucket they were in all winter, so if it ever stops raining long enough* I'll plant them too. The things-I-thought-were-daffodils last year - bought at a yard sale - bloomed, and half of them aren't daffs. Not sure what they are. And I've got a tray of perennials & annuals that would like to be planted too. But it's raining today.

*I swore after last summer that I wouldn't complain about rain this year, but jeez, a two-day break would let things dry out enough to plant whatever garden we're having this year. It's freaking May and I just tossed some peas and radish seed in the garden last weekend.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, guess who got a new pot, has started growing new leaves, and is looking a bit less fucked up?

post-1829-14451997939963_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...
Well, guess who got a new pot, has started growing new leaves, and is looking a bit less fucked up?

bloomed. It's like kudzu's prettier cousin or something.

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A friend of mine managed to kill so many plants that she get plastic plants now.

I managed to kill an aloe-vera as well, it was very easy...

But I have a colleague with the most amazing garden and I get so many good advices from him. Bless him! :clap:

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  • 1 month later...
That stuff's more "invasive and hard to kill" than mint.

Aw, man. I've killed SO much mint, it's not even funny. My one surviving plant is thriving only because I completely ignore it. My only other healthy plants are the coleus and petunias I used for a photosynthesis experiment in biology class and nearly killed on purpose. I give up!

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  • 1 month later...

Let's see, in the past couple years I've killed

Ivy

Madagascar Cactus

Couple of succulents

Venus Fly Trap

Mini cactus

I think part of the problem is that when I was first on a plant acquisition, I didn't pay attention to the sunlight requirements. The only real sunlight that gets into my apartment is through a bank of north facing windows, which get the least light of all (especially in winter).

Right now I have a thriving shamrock (as long as you water on a regular basis it is pretty hard to kill), a reviving aloe (I stopped listening to advice on not to give it a lot of water, and when I started watering on a more regular basis it started to thrive again), Christmas Cactus (it's been pretty hard to kill...lots, of water, forget to water...it just keeps going), and a philodanderon (sp?). I also have several air plants in glass jars that seem to be doing OK too.

I'm not naturally green thumbed, so anything that just requires water, a little light and a little bit of fertilizer is all I can handle.

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  • 9 months later...

Christmas cactus and shamrocks (oxalis, at least - there's another shamrock) are awesome. I've given up on poinsettias, but I have almost a dozen Christmas cactus. Finally found a yellow one last Thanksgiving. I've got three kinds of oxalis shamrocks - green, purple, and the bi-colored one called Maltese cross or something. The green and purple are great, but I can't seem to keep the bi-colored ones alive, even though they all get watered together.

I may have killed a pot of oregano a friend gave me, although the bloody raccoons trampling it didn't help any. And I thought I'd killed about $15 of ornamental ginger plants, but darned if they aren't sprouting again after six months of looking dead. I moved the pots outside, planning to put something else in them, but luckily I ran out of energy before I got to those pots. And now there are shoots and a couple of leaves.

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Let's see, in the past couple years I've killed

Venus Fly Trap

not a house plant. these suckers want to be outside in blasting hot sun. they are really easy to take care of I have them on a hot front porch full sun water three times a week in the summer or more and thats it. no food or anything though I found out they could use some protection if the temps get close to zero but otherwise they are only outdoor plants.

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Does anybody know any thing about orchids? I aquirred one but the leaves look funny and it wasn't planted in traditional soil?

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Does anybody know any thing about orchids? I aquirred one but the leaves look funny and it wasn't planted in traditional soil?

They're usually potted in orchid-specific stuff, looks like bark chunks - they're parasitic and live on trees, they don't grow in the ground. That's about my limit of knowledge :) although I have 3 orchids that are still alive. One actually re-bloomed, but darned if I know why or how. I'm still surprised that they're alive.

Oh, another accomplishment of sorts - I killed 4 cyclamen in about a month. The first one I managed in about a week, from over-watering. I feel guiltiest over that one - my 8-yr-old picked it out when he was sick, he wanted a get-well plant for himself, and I go and kill the darn thing before he's even off the 10-day prescription. :doh: :cry:

At least I guess they're all dead. I kept the corpses - anyone know if they'll revive? I was hoping they are just dormant, like those ginger plants, or my oxalis when I forget to water them.

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