Garden Center Trip

I recently visited my favorite garden center. I managed to walk away without purchasing anything, but I did find the most beautiful ponytail palms there. Two of them were quite large with leaves that were very wavy and long and one with a reddish tint to the leaves near the base of the leaves. I have been thinking about these since I was there and am considering going back to purchase them considering my ponytail palm is one of my only plants right now that is still doing awesome.

It's been far too long

Wow I haven't given any sort of update in quite a while.  I was very busy for a while, then I went on vacation for Christmas and to be quite honest nothing good has been happening with my plants.  Many of my house plants are dying or are already dead. I'm trying to save the ones I have left, but they just keep heading downhill despite my best efforts.  I believe it has to do with the temperature in my apartment being so cool, it never really gets up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and I can't manage to keep the humidity above 30%.  Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do without driving the electric bill sky high, I can only hope things warm up soon.

A Glimmer of Hope

There's been a lot of death in my apartment, I've lost several plants and many others are looking very unhappy. It has been too cold in my new apartment this winter and my plants are rebelling.

But in the midst of all this badness there's a bit of hope.  Rex is in bloom, the flower is not much to look at but it makes me feel like I'm doing something right.

Not enough time on my hands...

Right now I'm currently in my final semester at University, and oh boy, I don't have near enough time for anything.  The lack of free time is taking its toll on my plants, not to mention the nasty spider mite infestation that I don't have enough time to adequately deal with, I've just been trying to limp my plants along until I can dedicate some real time to the issue.  So far there is only one casualty and it was a baby spider plant that was probably much too small to be separated from its mommy.

Betta Fish Tank

Recently I decided to clean out my 10 gallon tank so that Duke could have room to stretch his fins (so to speak).  I cleaned it with bleach and used glass marbles for a substrate.

 I fixed the peace lily that was in his bowl to the side of the tank using an alligator clip and some fishing line (don't tell Duke that's what it is).  I also cut holes in the sides of a plastic pot and used more marbles and some cleaned gravel and this is being used to hold some baby spider plants.  During my research, I found articles that claimed spider plants could not be grown hydroponically for any significant amount of time.  While other articles said it was possible to grow them for an extended period of time in water.  Since I couldn't find anything conclusive about growing spider plants hydroponically, I decided to give it a try and find out for myself.  Philodendrons that were already in water were transferred to the tank because I know that they can survive quite nicely in water.  I also purchased some aponogeton bulbs.  There is currently no sproutage for any of the three bulbs I put in, but it has only been a couple of weeks.

Philodendron roots

Peace Lily roots

After about a week the water started to look pretty nasty even with a partial water change.  For there being ten gallons of water, the water got dirty very fast and I'm not sure why.  I cleaned up my old filter and had it running for a couple of hours yesterday and that seemed to help a lot more than a water change.  I'm currently trying to figure out why the water got dirty so fast.  I know that people have low tech fish tanks that use plants to keep the water clean instead of conventional tank filters.  I'm assuming that because I don't have any truly aquatic plants in my aquarium, but the water should have still been okay for that amount of time even with no filtration (Duke is just one fish and he's not even a dirty fish).

You know your avocado plant is happy when...

My avocado plant has been growing happily for weeks now, he's even got some new leafage showing up.

A growing orchid collection

While I was visiting my local Lowes, I stopped by the garden center (this shouldn't be a surprise).  I noticed that the distressed plant section was full of orchids, so I took a closer look.  The plants weren't distressed at all, they had just lost their blooms, they looked happy, the leaves were bright and firm and the flower stalk was even still green.  So I picked up a couple new types of orchids.

I got a dendrobium orchid and a blue orchid.  It was upon my return home that I found out that not all orchids are created equal.  An extensive internet search proved to be a little depressing.  I now have four different kinds of orchids all with their own little nit picky preferences.  They all like different amounts of light and different amounts of water, some like the bark medium some like moss.  I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed with what I should know and I'm not quite sure how I can keep this all straight.