what’s growing (a list)

back yard (mostly perennials):

• ivy (SO MUCH IVY YAY)
• Virginia creeper
• hostas
• autumn ferns (I haven’t seen any sign from the cinnamon ferns I planted, booo)
• snowdrops
• bluebells
• grape hyacinths
• lily of the valley
• various tulips
• columbines
• astilbes
• mums
• a couple other things too, I forget everything the raccoons ate in the fall
• the Princess tree, obviously

front porch (in containers, grown from seed):

• lemon balm
• rosemary
• sweet basil
• thyme
• catnip
• oregano
• sage

How To Start New Houseplants

beecurious:

If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time you already know that I’m a gardening addict. What you might not know is that I have a garden inside my home as well as outside it!

At one time my atrium was just a normal sunken living room, but some time in the 80’s the previous owners bumped up the ceiling, added a skylight, dug right through the floor to the dirt underneath and created this room full of plants. If one Boston Fern is enough to purify the air in a typical bedroom, then this room has enough plants to function as an air purifier for the entire house:

This ornamental fig tree is a light hog and tries constantly to climb up into the skylight, shading all the other plants. It’s probably about 30 years old now, and when we moved in it dominated the entire room, walls and ceiling. We pruned it back by over half. Once a year my husband sets up a ladder and I give it a good healthy trim and tie it back with twine to keep it in it’s proper place. Our fountain lady turns on when we have company and provides us with nice soothing ambiance. I dress her up in lei’s and a sarong when we have summer luau’s:  

There are many houseplants that can be started from a “mother” plant (a healthy plant that is sending off new baby strands), or from succulents that are making babies right alongside them. This little mini garden sits in my dining room. The containers are from IKEA and the plants were all started from other plants for free. The succulents were a wedding favor and are already sending off new starts. When they get too big for these pots they’ll move to bigger containers, be given away as gifts, or moved into the atrium:

You can see the little suckers growing and pushing out from the sides:

This beautiful spider plant has mothered more baby plants than I can count: 

Creeping Charlie’s have stems that can be broken off, and stuck directly into new soil. You can also break off stems and set them in a glass of water to help roots develop quicker before putting them into soil:

One way to start new plants is to set the new baby plant right under the main plant’s shoot, as I did with this spider plant, without detaching them. My end table happens to have a handy little shelf perfect for this purpose. The baby plant feeds off of the mother plant until it’s roots are deep enough to grow on their own. At that point, I cut the stem joining the two plants and move it wherever I like. You can see another new shoot starting just to the right of this baby one:

So here’s how I get the new plants started. If it’s succulent, gently pull off the baby shoot, separating it from the mother plant. Plant it directly into a new pot filled with soil made for succulents, and keep the soil moist until it develops it’s own root system. For spider plants here’s how I do it. 

I’m using red plastic cups because I plan to hang these from a plant that is already hanging in the atrium. It has two strong baby plants coming off of it and they are ready to move to their own pots. I cut off the tops so the containers are a bit shallower, then I punched holes in the bottom for drainage:

Fill up the cups with potting soil:

Here are the little baby shoots that are hanging from the mother plant. You can even see tiny little roots just waiting to grow on their own:

Take a paper clip, bend it open and fold it in the middle to make one small stake: 

Or break it in half, making two little mini stakes if your plant is very small:

These particular shoots are coming off a hanging plant, so I needed to devise a way to dangle them underneath the main plant. I punched holes with a paper hole punch and threaded twine through, forming a long loop:

Then I hung them from the side of the mother plant (S hooks work or you can just tie it). I laid each baby plant root side down and used my paper clip stakes to secure them firmly to the dirt. Once they develop their own roots, the stakes won’t be needed anymore. This can take about a month or so:

Remember to keep them moist while they are rooting. At no cost, you have two new houseplants. You can either keep them or put them in a pretty pot to give away!

I’ll leave you with some pretty images of potted plants that I love. Simple yet sophisticated:

I planted a bunch of things in the back yard yesterday, yay. However, upon hooking up the hose to the back yard spigot….. nothing happened. After checking the basement on the other side of the wall where the spigot comes out, I found a rusty pipe-looking thing that is missing a pretty large segment. I don’t think the outside spigot actually hooks up to anything on the inside of the house. D’oh. :(

And in the process of checking on this in the basement, I happened upon the FUCKING BIGGEST HOUSE CENTIPEDE I THINK I HAVE. EVER. SEEN. At that point I left the vicinity very quickly, and encouraged said centipede to stay the fuck away from me and go make itself useful by eating some fat juicy cockroaches. Just don’t come upstairs. I am never going to sleep again.

But more importantly, how am I going make sure my newly planted ferns get enough water if I can only use a watering can?? I’d set up a rain barrel, but the mosquito population is already absurd out there. Wat do?