I've always been partial to ferns, usually you just have to make sure the soil is moist every several days.
Spider plants are lovely though too.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
My peace lily is still alive. I think it might dislike the hardness of our water though because the very tips of its leaves are brown. It's putting out some new flowers though so it can't be suffering that much.
My peace lily is still alive. I think it might dislike the hardness of our water though because the very tips of its leaves are brown. It's putting out some new flowers though so it can't be suffering that much.
I second the peace lily if your corner doesn't get any direct sunlight. They pretty much thrive on abuse. You can tell when you need to water them because they start drooping in a very dramatic and pitiful fashion, and waiting until that stage to water them actually makes them more likely to produce blooms than keeping them watered on a regular schedule.
Our perennial flower gardens struggled a bit this year, despite consistent fertilizing. My latest hypothesis is that the soil needs a refresh via compost. We get lots of snow in the winter here.
Is it better to spread the compost now or wait until after the winter?
What is wrong with my anthurium? We've had it for years. It was outside for the summer but now that we have brought it in the leaves are turning yellow and the tips of the leaves are black.
Hey plant thread, I know I asked this before but there's a different context now, so I'm looking for opinions on pot plants that are cheap and hard to kill. This is for science, so when I say "Hard to kill" I don't mean "will survive if I forget it for a week", i mean "Will survive being grafted to a mouse".
(nB: I'm not grafting anything to a mouse, that would be gross)
Survive what though?
I have some mother of thousands that are both pretty resilient (my fiances mom sent us some little plant-lets in the mail, we forgot them in the baggie for like 2 weeks, and then they still grew once we put them in soil) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcYIjhurPAk
They need light though, Ours have gotten very leggy because they dont get enough sun:
You can pop off the little babies and just throw them onto warm, wet soil though, and they'll keep on going:
Your mileage may vary in the frigid north, though.
For something more leafy, I've not been able to kill a mint plant even when actively trying. Zizi plants are indestructible, but very slow growing in potted conditions in my experience.
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Having some serious leaf browning problems on my big plant. Not all of the leaves, but a bunch, seemingly on one side. Thought maybe they were getting sunburned so I've partially closed the drapes (I have sheer drapes that let in a good amount of diffuse light) but I'm not sure if it's that, or under-watering maybe? The internet where I figured out what kind of plant it was as best I could said to let the soil get dry before watering, but these babies grow outside here all over the place, and uhhh
It rains every damn day in this country
So I feel like maybe those instructions were bad and wrong?
In other updates, Yanny the Laurel fucking loves being outside my front door, in a humid, no-direct-light corner, and Achilles & Patroclus and Gertrude & Alice, the pothos plants, are... fine I guess? They seem fine? They lose a leaf or two a week but also seem to be growing more leaves, so hopefully that's normal.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
I've killed 98% of all plants I've ever tried to grow.
I usually do too. At my previous job though, they would celebrate Arbor Day by giving out free tree seedlings every year. I was given a Crabapple tree about 8 years ago, and I really wasn't happy with it, because I'd tried to get one of the other options.
However, that little tree has been sitting in an old water bottle in the kitchen window since then. It's not grown any at all and every fall I think it's died, only for it to shoot new leaves in the spring, but they're so tiny.
Originally I put it in the water bottle because we had a cold snap right as they were giving them out, and I've just never gotten around to planting it. All I've done is occasionally give it fresh water. But it's lived longer than any other plant I've ever had. At this point, I'm afraid to plant it.
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
edited October 2018
I might be getting an allotment. Saw a post in a local community Facebook group saying a couple of sites nearby had spaces so I emailed them and now a guy should be phoning me this week to arrange a viewing.
I'm pretty excited. I have no money and I have no car so no idea how I will transport equipment to the site but god darnit if I get my own allotment I will be so chuffed. Gonna grow lots of flowers for the bees and take a camping stove up there and sit in the rain drinking tea surrounded by my flowers.
Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I have land! My very own 10 pole plot of overgrown mess
This is half of it. Apparently the previous tenant up and left in summer, so it's full of plants gone to seed and sad abandoned crops. But next to that 2-colour shed is a rhubarb and some bushes that could be currants or raspberries or something, which I can salvage.
Next to a second shed is another rhubarb valiantly growing out of this huge pile of trash, which I think might have a compost heap underneath it.
Front half of the plot is where all the other tenants have been putting their waste wood. This is all going to burn on November 1st.
Lots of work to do. It's good that I'm starting at the end of the year, gives me a few months to focus on clearing up and fixing infrastructure without feeling the pressure of needing to be growing things straight away. Though I am going to put some garlic in asap.
Been reading a lot of things about permaculture recently and going to try and use some of those ideas. I am really looking forward to it.
I bought myself some lilies for Thanksgiving. I decided to #TreatMyself and got TWO bunches rather than one. It will be a flower explosion.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
My veg garden is going well!
I've got at least 5 baby cucumbers, 4 baby capsicums, a tiny bunch of strawberries, and a whole heap of green beans! My lettuces are constant and I'm going to be eating a lot of bok choy.
I'm resisting going and buying more things.
My lemon tree and peach tree are also doing well. I've even netted the peach already to try and keep the birds away.
I'll figure out Imgur or something so I can show yall some photos soon!
And then she grabs her pink elephant watering can, and gives them more water.
"This is lettuce!"
That is so awesome haha. My mother is a really good gardener, and I have a lot of fond memories of being a young kiddo and seeing all the cool things that she had growing in the yard. And then getting to eat some of those things! Home grown! I'm sure your kiddo will have similar fond memories.
NightDragon on
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
Hey Lonelyahava, I have found a veg for sale here called 'oca tuber' which I've never heard of before. It looks like a carrot had a baby with a potato. Apparently they're from NZ. Do you know of them and if so are they good eats?
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
*googles*
Oh! Those things! They're called 'yams' down here, though they aren't really.
I've made them once. They tasted like a sweet potato? But with a slightly stringier texture? But not like celery or spaghetti squash strings.
I remember liking them, just haven't made them again for some reason. I should grab some more.
Very good in a winter roast with other starchy roots.
Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
Well the neem oil worked to kill the tiny bugs on my big plant but the big plant is stubbornly still refusing to thrive. So when it inevitably dies, I have to pick a NEW big plant to put in the pot at the window. Any suggestions for species that thrive in direct sunlight with low humidity and a temperature of about 26 C?
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Well the neem oil worked to kill the tiny bugs on my big plant but the big plant is stubbornly still refusing to thrive. So when it inevitably dies, I have to pick a NEW big plant to put in the pot at the window. Any suggestions for species that thrive in direct sunlight with low humidity and a temperature of about 26 C?
Pineapple planted in potting mix. Mine is roughly a 4 foot sphere.
Behold!
(This is my winter anti plant death section. 4ft stick for scale.)
Einzel on
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Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
edited November 2018
But I don't want a cactus!
Also I should say relatively low humidity for Singapore, so like, baseline is 60 to 80% humidity every day
My apartment is just not-humid enough that my clothes don't mold, but you still have to get your aircon filters cleaned of yuck every three months
Tis a damp place
E: as a related story, the two weeks in the U.S. turned my lips and hands into crumbling shredding paper, it was so dry in comparison to my norm
Lost Salient on
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
How about a Golden Wattle (Acacia pycnantha)?
You'd have to prune it aggressively to keep it shrub-sized because otherwise they grow into 8 metre tall trees, but they have cool clusters of little golden yellow balls for flowers:
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
somebody in my gardening group was showing off their christmas cactus.
Well the neem oil worked to kill the tiny bugs on my big plant but the big plant is stubbornly still refusing to thrive. So when it inevitably dies, I have to pick a NEW big plant to put in the pot at the window. Any suggestions for species that thrive in direct sunlight with low humidity and a temperature of about 26 C?
Sago palm and Areca palm are both high-light plants and can get really large. There might be other palm trees you can try out, but I know those two love bright sun. I've heard Areca palms can be a little finicky, but I've also read that can be due to the fact people don't always give them enough light.
Bamboo is another great one. Bird of Paradise too, but they might be a bit expensive.
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Lost Salientblink twiceif you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered Userregular
edited November 2018
Bird of paradise grow around here like literal weeds (seriously - I'm walking by a wall of them right now) but to be honest the fact that in the outdoors they often have MASSIVE HORRIFYING ant infestations is pretty off-putting when I think about putting one inside. An areca palm could work probably, though! I need something tall and not cacti-painful, it should be added, since it's in my bay window and I sit there regularly.
I'll be replacing it in January, since I'll buy my Christmas tree this week and put it where the big dying plant is anyway.
E: bamboo or a money tree could also be the solutions
Lost Salient on
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
So my Cat palm ended up overrun with spider mites on the leaves and root-eating asshole bugs in the soil, so after trying to save it for months I just let it die. That is officially the last time I ever buy a plant from the Home Depot, as EVERY SINGLE TIME I've done this (because they're cheap!) the plant has been completely infested with something awful. But! I replaced it with a much better palm at a local plant nursery that has always had extremely high-quality, healthy plants, and has been my go-to plant store.
RIP Cat Palm
Long live the new, bigger and better, pricier Bamboo Hybrid Palm! yaaaay
Basically looks like this, similar bushiness and height:
Also I bought the most gorgeous Instagram-worthy plant called a Stromanthe sanguinea Tricolor or "Triostar". They look like this:
CAN YOU EVEN HANDLE how beautiful and awesomely cool this plant is?? I posit, you cannot. I certainly cannot.
So my Cat palm ended up overrun with spider mites on the leaves and root-eating asshole bugs in the soil, so after trying to save it for months I just let it die. That is officially the last time I ever buy a plant from the Home Depot, as EVERY SINGLE TIME I've done this (because they're cheap!) the plant has been completely infested with something awful.
That's deeply shameful. When I was working at the garden center at Lowe's, we got infested by some god-awful mite, and our nursery specialist threw out nearly every plant we owned except the trees and some of the more aggressive herbs, and refused new shipments for two weeks of our busiest season.
Fortunately, the store manager correctly backed her up on this. Turns out that it's better to take a one-time hit of around half a million dollars rather than sell self-destructing infectious plants to thousands of customers, thus losing their business forever.
If you ever buy an infested plant from a store, never go back there. If they're not willing or empowered to make the hard choices, every plant from there is a plague ship until proven otherwise.
Fun bonus fact: if you return a plant to Lowe's, they'll give you your money back and then promptly destroy the plant, to avoid precisely this kind of situation. So if you've got a cunning plan to purchase $1200 worth of Crepe Myrtles just to use them in your engagement photos and then return them, don't do it in Norman, OK. The nursery specialist will guilt you at the return desk until you cry.
Posts
Spider plants are lovely though too.
I second the peace lily if your corner doesn't get any direct sunlight. They pretty much thrive on abuse. You can tell when you need to water them because they start drooping in a very dramatic and pitiful fashion, and waiting until that stage to water them actually makes them more likely to produce blooms than keeping them watered on a regular schedule.
Is it better to spread the compost now or wait until after the winter?
(nB: I'm not grafting anything to a mouse, that would be gross)
I have some mother of thousands that are both pretty resilient (my fiances mom sent us some little plant-lets in the mail, we forgot them in the baggie for like 2 weeks, and then they still grew once we put them in soil)
They need light though, Ours have gotten very leggy because they dont get enough sun:
You can pop off the little babies and just throw them onto warm, wet soil though, and they'll keep on going:
Your mileage may vary in the frigid north, though.
For something more leafy, I've not been able to kill a mint plant even when actively trying. Zizi plants are indestructible, but very slow growing in potted conditions in my experience.
It rains every damn day in this country
So I feel like maybe those instructions were bad and wrong?
In other updates, Yanny the Laurel fucking loves being outside my front door, in a humid, no-direct-light corner, and Achilles & Patroclus and Gertrude & Alice, the pothos plants, are... fine I guess? They seem fine? They lose a leaf or two a week but also seem to be growing more leaves, so hopefully that's normal.
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
I usually do too. At my previous job though, they would celebrate Arbor Day by giving out free tree seedlings every year. I was given a Crabapple tree about 8 years ago, and I really wasn't happy with it, because I'd tried to get one of the other options.
However, that little tree has been sitting in an old water bottle in the kitchen window since then. It's not grown any at all and every fall I think it's died, only for it to shoot new leaves in the spring, but they're so tiny.
Originally I put it in the water bottle because we had a cold snap right as they were giving them out, and I've just never gotten around to planting it. All I've done is occasionally give it fresh water. But it's lived longer than any other plant I've ever had. At this point, I'm afraid to plant it.
I'm pretty excited. I have no money and I have no car so no idea how I will transport equipment to the site but god darnit if I get my own allotment I will be so chuffed. Gonna grow lots of flowers for the bees and take a camping stove up there and sit in the rain drinking tea surrounded by my flowers.
turns out my awesome GF planted it and I forgot! I have so much fresh oregano now!
I've added some swan plants, marigolds, salvias, and lavenders.
My whole deck will be so green!
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Next to a second shed is another rhubarb valiantly growing out of this huge pile of trash, which I think might have a compost heap underneath it.
Front half of the plot is where all the other tenants have been putting their waste wood. This is all going to burn on November 1st.
Lots of work to do. It's good that I'm starting at the end of the year, gives me a few months to focus on clearing up and fixing infrastructure without feeling the pressure of needing to be growing things straight away. Though I am going to put some garlic in asap.
Been reading a lot of things about permaculture recently and going to try and use some of those ideas. I am really looking forward to it.
I've got at least 5 baby cucumbers, 4 baby capsicums, a tiny bunch of strawberries, and a whole heap of green beans! My lettuces are constant and I'm going to be eating a lot of bok choy.
I'm resisting going and buying more things.
My lemon tree and peach tree are also doing well. I've even netted the peach already to try and keep the birds away.
I'll figure out Imgur or something so I can show yall some photos soon!
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
"Mommy look, strawberries! Look, peaches! Look, strawberries!"
And then she grabs her pink elephant watering can, and gives them more water.
"This is lettuce!"
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
That is so awesome haha. My mother is a really good gardener, and I have a lot of fond memories of being a young kiddo and seeing all the cool things that she had growing in the yard. And then getting to eat some of those things! Home grown! I'm sure your kiddo will have similar fond memories.
Oh! Those things! They're called 'yams' down here, though they aren't really.
I've made them once. They tasted like a sweet potato? But with a slightly stringier texture? But not like celery or spaghetti squash strings.
I remember liking them, just haven't made them again for some reason. I should grab some more.
Very good in a winter roast with other starchy roots.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Veggie garden https://imgur.com/a/SbtPjmo
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
The biggest cactus you can find.
Behold!
(This is my winter anti plant death section. 4ft stick for scale.)
Also I should say relatively low humidity for Singapore, so like, baseline is 60 to 80% humidity every day
My apartment is just not-humid enough that my clothes don't mold, but you still have to get your aircon filters cleaned of yuck every three months
Tis a damp place
E: as a related story, the two weeks in the U.S. turned my lips and hands into crumbling shredding paper, it was so dry in comparison to my norm
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
You'd have to prune it aggressively to keep it shrub-sized because otherwise they grow into 8 metre tall trees, but they have cool clusters of little golden yellow balls for flowers:
you should get one of those, @Lost Salient
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Sago palm and Areca palm are both high-light plants and can get really large. There might be other palm trees you can try out, but I know those two love bright sun. I've heard Areca palms can be a little finicky, but I've also read that can be due to the fact people don't always give them enough light.
Bamboo is another great one. Bird of Paradise too, but they might be a bit expensive.
I'll be replacing it in January, since I'll buy my Christmas tree this week and put it where the big dying plant is anyway.
E: bamboo or a money tree could also be the solutions
"Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
RIP Cat Palm
Long live the new, bigger and better, pricier Bamboo Hybrid Palm! yaaaay
Basically looks like this, similar bushiness and height:
Also I bought the most gorgeous Instagram-worthy plant called a Stromanthe sanguinea Tricolor or "Triostar". They look like this:
CAN YOU EVEN HANDLE how beautiful and awesomely cool this plant is?? I posit, you cannot. I certainly cannot.
That's deeply shameful. When I was working at the garden center at Lowe's, we got infested by some god-awful mite, and our nursery specialist threw out nearly every plant we owned except the trees and some of the more aggressive herbs, and refused new shipments for two weeks of our busiest season.
Fortunately, the store manager correctly backed her up on this. Turns out that it's better to take a one-time hit of around half a million dollars rather than sell self-destructing infectious plants to thousands of customers, thus losing their business forever.
If you ever buy an infested plant from a store, never go back there. If they're not willing or empowered to make the hard choices, every plant from there is a plague ship until proven otherwise.
Fun bonus fact: if you return a plant to Lowe's, they'll give you your money back and then promptly destroy the plant, to avoid precisely this kind of situation. So if you've got a cunning plan to purchase $1200 worth of Crepe Myrtles just to use them in your engagement photos and then return them, don't do it in Norman, OK. The nursery specialist will guilt you at the return desk until you cry.