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.

Grow your own ginger update

A new sprout started showing itself a couple of days ago and it's just the cutest little thing. I'm not sure what this means for the plant itself especially after the big shoot tipped over.

As you can see in the picture, I have also been dealing with some brown leaf tips.  I'm not sure why that is, but I moved the plant to an area that receives less light and have also been misting the leaves often.  Hopefully that will help with both the brown leaves and the weak shoot.

Where did all these bugs come from

Not only do I seem to have quite a plant collection, but I also seem to have quite the pest collection as well.  Along with the fungus gnats that inevitably come with plants (esp. Fittonias), I have also discovered spider mites and mealy bugs.

While fungus gnats are annoying as they try to fly up your nose or when you can't leave a water glass out without collecting carcases, they are really nothing more that a nuisance (and spider attractant).  From what I've read about spider mites and mealy bugs, they can actually take a toll on the plants health and well being.

So I'm wondering where they all came from?  I have a couple of newly acquired plants, but none of them seem to be affected by either foe.  There was also a couple of amaryllis that had been living outside and are now inside, but these also seem to be unaffected by the pests; however, I suppose that the bugs could have hitched a ride on any one of these plants and just found other plants in my collection to be more desirable.

Anyways, through this little glitch in my apartment garden I have discovered the wonderful things everyday household items can do.

1st ~ a mixture of dish soap and water sprayed onto the plants and the soil has pretty much eliminated the spider mites, although according to a lot of the sources I read a reapplication or two will be necessary to kill the eggs that hatch later on.  I was amazed that when I sprayed all my plants with this at night and by the next morning only a couple little bugs could be seen.

2nd ~ rubbing alcohol dabbed onto the fuzzy looking mealy bugs with a cotton swab killed them and they could be easily removed.

Today is not a good day to be me

Yikes, I just discovered little tiny bugs crawling all over a bunch of my plants/pots.  I'm assuming they're spider mites, but I can't be sure.  The only things I know for sure are that they're tiny, kind of off-white and like house plants.

I quickly sprayed all my plants and pots with dish soap and water, it was the best solution I could find using things I already had and it is suppose to take care of a wide array of pests in case my diagnosis was incorrect.

Then my ginger, which had been growing quite nicely for some time, just tipped right over...timber.

But I'm pretty sure that things will still be a mess when I wake up in the morning....

Houseplant: I'll breathe for you if you breathe for me

I think it's hard sometimes for people to understand why houseplants are so important, but I have a perfect example of why I could never go back to living without them.

While I was away from my apartment for a week, I had my bedroom (where most of my plants reside) all closed up, the window was locked, the door was shut and there everything just sat for a week.  When I walked in to the apartment upon my return it kind of smelled like it had been closed up for a week, a slightly stale feeling in the air that made me want to immediately open a window no matter what the weather was doing outside.  But when I opened the bedroom door I got this waft of beautiful fresh air, there was nothing stale about it.  It was like I just stepped outside and was in a field of grass or a meadow or something, but the point is I had fresh air in a completely closed off room.  It smelled so beautiful and clean; it was truly eye opening as to what plants can really do for you.

The End of a Bean Plant

I had started my Northern Bean experiment with pretty high hopes, they had sprouted without trying.  But alas my miniscule efforts were for naught.  While away for the week they began to wither and when I returned all the water in the world wasn't going to save them. Maybe next time...

New Edition to the Apartment Jungle

 A very large chunk of the year I live where I can only by plants at Wal-mart or Lowes, and while I can find some plants I like at those places (I have my eye on a white bird of paradise currently stocked at Wal-mart), there are very few plants that I find captivating, that I don't already have.  So when I go to visit my parents (who live where there are actual greenhouses) I like to stop by and see if there's anything that I absolutely must have.

To my surprise the greenhouse that I stopped at had a plant that I had been thinking about for a while, a vanilla orchid.  I had been researching how to keep my orchid happy (it's still working on its flower stalk) and I stumbled upon vanilla orchids.  I researched them and decided that I would like to try to grow one if I ever had the luck to find one.

The vine is still quite small and therefore it wont bloom for a couple years at least, but it seems to be pretty happy with me so far (its had several inches of new growth).  I am definitely looking forward to having some homegrown vanilla beans :)

An Avocado Tree's New Home

I finally decided (okay, got around to) planting my avocado tree in a real pot.

I think he looks happy in his new home. I know the pot is a little bit big for him, but I needed a very deep pot in order to have room for his incredibly long tap root.  And this way I figure that he'll have plenty of room to grow for a while.

I also should let you know that I didn't pinch off his baby leaves, I left for about a week and when I came back his leaves were huge and I just couldn't do it.  Many of the things I read online say that's its important to prune an indoor avocado tree, but with this being my first attempt I'll just see how it goes.

Avocado land

My avocado plant's shoot is growing all the time and there are even two little leaves at the top.  Knowing that I will be able to plant it soon, I've started to ponder my pot options.  But as it turns out the avocado's taproot has grown very long, too long for most standard pots.  I'm not sure what that means, but it makes finding an appropriately sized pot difficult.

 I'm glad that my gnome keeps a good watch over my indoor garden.

A lot of the stuff I'm reading about growing and avocado plant like this say to prune the 1st leaves off of the shoot so it will put more energy into root growth.  I'm not sure that I'll be able to cut off those cute little leaves :(

Yay another update blog!

My great northern beans are growing fast and getting tall.  The beans sprouted within a couple of days and they just shot up.  They'll need some support soon so I purchased three wooden dowels from a craft store, but now I'm thinking that they might not be long enough.

Bean plants on Aug 12th

Bean plants on Aug 14th

Bean plants Aug 17th

New Little Experiment

I have never had good luck with buying the dried beans, soaking them and then cooking with them.  For whatever reason it just never works out.  My most recent attempt is no exception.  I did soak more beans than I used (and ultimately threw away) and so a few beans sat in the colander for a day or so after I'd soaked them.  Then today when I went to throw them away I noticed that more than half the beans had started to sprout.  So I did what any normal person with a plant obsession would do...I planted them.  I took five small plastic pots and planted about a dozen of the best looking beans.

And so begins my scientific exploration of the best methods for food production and viable seed collection that will be necessary for the upcoming apocalypse or at least my inevitable poverty.

Updates to follow...of course.

Update: Avocado land

My avocado pit is now sprouting and looking good.

 I've been trying to figure out when to plant it some dirt.  Everything I read seems to say something different, but I guess I'll wait until it has leaves. 

I'm really excited about this, its probably because I've been trying to get this to work for so long and now it finally is.

Desert collection

My collection of desert plant has recently expanded.  My local wal-mart just got in a new shipment of succulents and cacti, I know what you're thinking wal-mart's probably not the best place to buy plants.  The thing is they were cheap and had just arrived, plus they all looked pretty healthy and pest free.

I bought three new plants:

A larger Aloe Vera.  My baby aloe is taking a long time to grow and I kinda wanted a large one, I'm pretty impatient like that.

 Hen and chicks.  There was a beautiful hen and chicks plant that had burgundy tipped leaves.  It wasn't until I brought it home and re-potted that I discovered it had two 'chicks' already growing.

Echeveria 'black prince'. I already have two succulents that are echeveria, but this one really caught my eye.  I love the contrast between the incredibly dark tips and the light green center.







After this recent purchase I decided I must do one of two things, either stop getting plants or expand the area in which I keep my plants.  I'm leaning toward the second option, mostly because I have several plants that can be propagated very easily and I would like room for expansion there.  Also, there are a lot of cool plants I kind of have my eye on and  would rather not be forced to wait.

So far so ginger

I can't believe how fast my ginger is growing.  It seems as though I have a new leaf every other day.

Now only time will tell if I get more than one shoot.

New addition to desert plant collection

My local garden center was recently selling Lithops, or living stones.  On an impulse I bought one and brought it home.

While I am definitely not regretting my purchase, I do wish I has done some research before bringing it home.  As it turns out Lithops are from an area that has four distinct seasons, instead of the two you usually have to worry about when it comes to desert cacti and succulents.  Each season has different requirements for the plant and those need to be met to have a happy living rock.

I think it probably goes without saying, but this may turn horrific rather soon.  I'm going to do my best to keep him happy, but I think this may involve a learning curve. I'm really hoping this website http://www.lithops.info/ really helps, it does look pretty legit.

It's a pomegranate miracle

Just as I was about to give up hope on my little pomegranate seedling, something spectacular happened...

Green appeared at the top of the lame-o little stick and before you knew it, there were actual leaves.

I still have two other pomegranate plants that have decided not to turn green yet, but this gives me hope.

Things are looking up in avocado land

 Finally got an avocado pit to do something :)

When it comes to avocados, I no longer feel like a failure.

Baby Aloe Plant

Several months ago I purchased a tiny aloe pup from my university's green house.  I cost just a dollar, but was incredibly small, measuring maybe two inches tall.

Soon after I transplanted it to a ceramic pot, the largest leaf began to turn brown and shriveled.  I continued caring for it, bright light and a little water, and it seemed to be surviving.

My aloe plant about four months ago, shortly after purchase

I still have hope that it will survive.  There was quite a while after I first got this plant that I wasn't sure that it would survive.  However, now that I've had it for a while and seen that it is growing (even though it's very slow) I think it can make it through.

My aloe plant today.  It's growing slowly, but he's a trooper

Betta Fish Bowl

I've said before that I'm no expert when it comes to fish.  My history with them seems to resemble a Hitchcock film more than anything else.  Never the less I decided to fill my betta bowl again.  I have had more luck with betta fish than any other type, so I thought I'd give it one more go.

This time I decided that I would try the fish bowl as a planter idea.  Here is where I'll put my disclaimer about keeping my betta fish happy and healthy.  I am aware of the special needs of betta fish.  They are carnivorous and I would never expect a betta to live off of eating the roots of the plants. He is fed at least twice daily with a food formulated for betta fish and is also often offered  freeze dried blood worms and other sources of protein.  I'm also aware that the plant has filtering capabilities, but have no intention of letting that replace daily water changes.  Betta fish are surface breathers so I made sure that the plastic holding the plant in place had plenty of breathing holes and is set up above the water line so that he can breath easy.

I did some research to find the best plants to use, which include the peace lily, philodendron, and dieffenbachia.  Although I already have a philodendron, I stopped at my local garden center and picked up a peace lily (any excuse for a new plant).

Through the research I found the basics of growing the plant hydroponically and how to propagate as well.  I took my new peace lily and tried to remove as much dirt as possible.

This was more of a chore than I bargained for.  First off the plant was root bound, the soil was so densely packed in the roots almost none of the dirt came out.  I ran water through the root ball and I soaked if for more than a day. I tried to get the dirt out every few hours during the soaking by squeezing the roots and swishing them around in water.  Then I decided to divide the plant as my only other option to get the soil out of the center of the roots.

I used the information that I had gained through internet resources and separated the crowns, trying to keep as much root attached to the newly separated plant.  I divided it into three plants, one I put in dirt, one I put in stone aggregate to grow hydroponically and the other went into the fish bowl.

The fish has been living with the plant harmoniously for more than 72 hours and both seem happy and healthy, however I did read that the peace lily make take up to a month to fully acclimate to its new watery environment.

This is Duke, my new fishy friend

I haven't had to trim the roots yet, but I know that will have to be done to give him enough room to swim around.

What happened to my potato?

The strangest thing happened. 

My potato plant was not looking so happy so I decides to dig up the potato that should have been buried in the soil...Nothing.  The potato that I had put in there a couple months ago was gone and there was nothing in the dirt besides a few roots.  I didn't exactly expect to grow a potato, but I would at least like to know what happened to the potato that I put in there.

Plant Updates

Just as I was about to abandon the idea of growing a ginger plant, there came a sprout.  Its growing every day and looking good.

After years without any sign that my orchid would ever bloom again, it started sending up a flower stem. I can't even remember what color the blooms were.

Amarilis..enough said.

My (not so) Little Experiments

They say "curiosity killed the cat," but what they don't know is that satisfaction brought him back.

Here goes the introductions into my plant experiments, my wins, but more often my failures and the great big learning curve.

We'll start with past failures:

Project pineapple -

I was told by a friend that if you took the top off of a pineapple you purchased at the grocery store that you could get it to grow.  This naturally made me want to try it, but first I did my homework.  After many bing searches and reading tons of articles by so many people sounding very confident in their ability to grow a pineapple plant, I decided it would be terribly easy to grow one, after all there were so many ways to do it.  Heck it was even described as an easy elementary school science project...no problem, I'm in college, if a kid can do it, I can do it.  So I headed out to my local grocery store and purchased two pineapples (I wanted to make sure I got at least one to work).  Headed home to have a snack (I fricken love pineapple), I put one top in water and the other in soil (the top two ways I read about on the internet) and I waited...and waited...and waited...nothing.

All I got out of this was two nasty pineapple tops rotting in my room.  I don't think I've ever felt like a bigger loser, a child could do it! I was so angry at my complete and utter failure that I have yet to try it again, maybe some day when it no longer stings to think about it.

Project avocado -

I think we've all heard of this one, take the pit out of an avocado, rest it in some water and let it sprout.  Then plant the pit in some soil and you too can have your very own avocado tree...or not.  I've tried this every time I've gotten and avocado for the last couple of years and I still have no avocado tree.  I don't know why, but they just never sprout.

The picture is of my current attempt at getting one to sprout...we'll see how that goes.

Propagating a begonia -

Although not a complete and utter failure, I still feel pretty lame about it.  I rooted two of my begonia's leaves in water (not the best way to propagate a begonia I know, but I'm not that confident in myself to try the wedge cuttings).  Then I planted them in soil after they had quite a few roots and before you knew it there were little tiny begonia leaves coming up.  One of them was given to a friend as a gift and the other I saved for myself.

Not an advertisement for Aveeno, it just happened to be there

 

One would assume that since I had an established begonia that was doing well, I could help this one survive...I couldn't.  It died shortly after this photo was taken.  However, the one that I gave to my friend is still alive and kicking with lots of tiny little leaves.


Now onto my ongoing experiments...most are looking like they will shape up to be failures as well.

Project pomegranate -

A little less than a year ago I bought a pomegranate and decided to put some seeds in a pot just to see what would happen.  Well the next thing I knew they were sprouting up like crazy.

Then they grew, and grew and all was looking well.

Then they stopped growing.  I thought they had just spent so much time and effort growing that they might need a break just to chill and gather strength.  But then something awful started to happen, they started dropping their tiny little leaves.  I was hard at work researching to see if there was anything that I could do, but nothing.  There isn't much literature on growing an indoor pomegranate plant from seed.  However, I did find out through my research that they are deciduous trees, so I still have hope that they'll bounce back soon.

Project ginger -

Before you ask, no I'm not trying to grow a red head, but rather the delightfully tasty rhizome/root that is used to flavor Asian dishes.  I'm currently working on take two of project ginger, the first attempt ended with a rotting piece of ginger in some dirt. 

Take two started much the same way as take one, with a nice firm, fresh piece of ginger I purchased at the grocery store.  Then I buried it in some dirt, wet it down and this time I covered it with plastic wrap to keep the moisture in.  I just checked it yesterday and sure enough there is growth, although you can't see it at the surface.  We'll just have to wait and see if anything really happens with it.  I'm hoping that soon I'll be able to see growth above the soil surface.

Project potato -

This experiment didn't start like any of my other projects.  I never had any intention of trying to grow a potato in my apartment before I started, and there was no research beforehand.  I went to grab a potato out of the bag and the potato had ripped a hole in its bag with its ginormous sprouts.  I thought it was cool and stuck it in some dirt to see what would happen.  A few days later...

Then the research started, I found a few sites that seemed to know what they were talking about...keeping the soil moist but never wet, mounding the dirt as the plant grew and so forth.

Sure I can handle that, no problem...then I left for a week...

Wow, how did that happen? Nothing I read said that a potato plant would shoot up like that.  Well so much for mounding the dirt up, but the plant looks pretty good and this was just an experiment to see if a potato placed in some dirt would work I'm not gonna stress out about it too much.

So for any of you that have ever thought about planting a potato indoors, beware of that.

[And in case you noticed, yes the potato plant is in an aquarium.  I had a 10 gal fish tank that was unusable for fish.  Unfortunately a very stupid pet store sold me a fish that had a very virulent type of ick and every thing I tried couldn't get it out of the tank, so the tank was transformed into a container garden.]

Now only time will tell if I end up with another potato.

Project cat grass -

You might be asking yourself what's the experiment, you go to the pet store, buy some cat grass seeds (which are usually oats of some sort), put them in a pot with some dirt and water, a couple of days later you have sprouts...no experiment there.  Except when you're getting tired of purchasing the cat grass seeds. The hope is to get the oats to go to seed so that I can harvest them and stop buying cat grass.

I took a pot with some soil, planted the seeds and kept it away from the cat.

 The grass seems to grow the best outside and I've been fertilizing every so often, but at some point it started to look not so happy...

It's still too soon to tell, but it's a possibility that the manufacturers modified the genome so that it wouldn't go to seed.  This is something a lot of seed producers do to make sure that you're buying seed every year and not harvesting your own, an evil thing to do if you ask me.