Nay for breaking my plant when I watered it ;~;

[jellysundae]

I have a heartleaf Philodendron, one of these, this isn't my plant just a ref my friend Google leant me.

(incidentally spellcheck, I'm British, so that IS spelt leant, and while we're at it, yes, that is also spelt and not spelled. )

 

I've had it for quite a while, and it has survived me subjecting it to various near-death experiences over the years, and it seems today is the latest one of those for it to face.

The vine is about 3 feet long at this point, with a side shoot of about a foot that it put out last year. This length it has achieved since the last time I broke it about 3 years back and left it with just one leaf remaining . . .  seems I clearly thought that was far too generous and have totally upped my game now, because it's broken off completely from the roots this time.

In its pot there are 2 newbies that I propagated from it last year, one just a tiny shoot poking out of the soil, and one with a new leaf which has quite literally taken 6 months to unfurl, please don't die you two!

The vine I've draped back in its normal place and put the root end in a vase of water. I have close to zero realistic hope of this keeping it alive as there's only a tiny bit of root on it. But this plant's clearly a fighter, and that grain of perpetual optimism that I'm cursed with seems convinced it will be just fine, thrive even! Sometimes I suspect my inner optimist is actually my inner troll.

So yeah, Bad Plant Mama strikes again

AND, I've put it back in with the others it's grouped with so they're probably all sat there, quaking in their pots, now. Terrified about what I'll do to THEM . . . you go out of the room to have a nice drink in the kitchen, and come back with your HEAD BROKEN OFF!!

 

Do any of you guys have plants? I have quite a few, but as you may have gathered, if they live it's only because they can survive pretty much anything.

Tell me about your green babies.

[GillyTook]

Eh, so long as you take care of the propagated vines, those little guys seem to be pretty hardy :) 

I think my last count was 115?  Or something close to that?  I live in Florida, so thankfully most of my plants can be outside year round.  I've got a couple of maidenhair ferns, a couple of high maintenance orchids, a peace lily, a pilea I won, a couple of selaginella (though I've not had luck with those in the past, hoping they do well for me) and a few african violets inside.  OUTSIDE?  Erm, a lot?  A dozen or so cacti (mostly mammillaria.  I love that their flowers look like crowns!)

Outside?  Erm, a lot?  I've got a bunch of cacti, probably about 15 mammillaria species now (I love that their flowers look like crowns <3 ) a few randomly assorted other species, and a planter with a few colours of christmas cacti.  Then I've got a few succulents that I think are all in the lily family, and a few sanseviera, both the "regular" kind, and a few species plants.  I've got, I think, a half dozen plumeria now?  Including a boring white one I got when the neighbour's tree lost a limb in the last hurricane.  I have a couple of irises (one walking, one regina) four varieties of jade, four desert roses, about nine hibiscus, including three that are species plants, some milkweed for the butterflies, a potato tree (which is so cool!  The flowers change colour as they age!) a pot with some mums that I got on a discount rack that never died (heh) some hardier orchids (including a vanilla vine!) a parlour palm, a few birdsnest ferns (yay! I finally found a fimbriatum again after my last was killed.  I screamed.  Quite literally.) about 20 (I think?) bromeliads, a few random other sorts of ferns that are a bit harder to kill, and a couple of camellia.  One is a japonica that looks like it'll have reddish flowers, and the other is a sinensis!  Another plant I squealed when I found.  Mostly because I'm obsessed with tea, and could theoretically make my own when the little guy gets big.  At least a cup or two a year.  I've also got a few bulb plants, but none are really super special.  A few sorts of caladiums, a couple of amaryllis.  Eh.  I DO want more bromeliads for sure.  And more orchids, since I can never have too many of those.  I'd love to have a hibiscus and plumeria collection, but they get so big comparatively >_> 

 

edit: and my bamboo!  How did I forget those?  I've also got a Chinese goddess bamboo, and a variegated buddha's belly bamboo.  

[jellysundae]

1 hour ago, GillyTook said:

Eh, so long as you take care of the propagated vines, those little guys seem to be pretty hardy :) 

Yeah I'm fairly hopeful that the baby plants will be ok, but I'm still mourning the loss of 3 year's worth of growth. The reason I watered it today was noticing some of the leaves were a bit floppy and wilty, and they still are now after the cut end having been in water for 5 hours. So I may have to just clip off the growing end on the new side shoot and say goodbye to the vine itself, and it was looking so nice. ;~;

Ooh what is your Pilea? Last year I bought 3 Pilea babies; 2 Peperomioides and 1 Depressa. I got them in October and they all carried on slowly growing through the winter. I bought a whole load of bare root cuttings on Ebay last year, so now I have a bunch of new plants that I've no idea what I'm doing with, lol. I love the Pilea's though, both kinds are so pretty! Wasn't sure about the Depressa at first as it seemed kind of boring but it's really grown on me, it's got beautiful red under-sides to the leaves and it's so glossy.

But my fave so far is Oxalis Triangularis, what a gorgeous plant!

Sadly that is not mine, lol. Mine's only got 2 leaves, but it is flowering Pink flowers not white. I stare at the soil every day looking for signs of a new leaf, hopefully soon!  I'm jealous of you being in Florida, you could easily grow this outside there. Though I think in places where they grow well outside they grow REALLY well and become a problem, lol. Though REALLY, I'm not jealous of Florida at all, your plants are more than welcome to all that heat and humidity, I'll stay here in the English cold.

Oh I have a sanseviera too, which has done absolutely nothing since I got it. xD It's just one full leaf, about 8 inches high, and a new one that's under an inch, and they have just sat there quietly chilling since I got it. Very well behaved, lol.

I tried growing plumerias from seed before, that was a big ol' total fail xD Now I've had to Google Potato Tree! Was I expecting pendulous potatoes on a tree to explain the name? (which would be handy got to admit!) But I totally see why it's called that once I saw the flowers, aren't they lovely! I have a bromeliad that my mum gave me about 2 years ago, once Spring's definitely here I need to bite the bullet and separate the 5 pups and say bye-bye to the mum, they're nearly the same size as her now, lol.

This year I WILL be having quite a struggle with finding places for these plants I bought as they grow. But that's a nice 1st world problem to have, I think.  I'm going for the jungalow look so I don't care if I get buried in greenery!

I don't know if I dare with orchids . . . but who am I kidding, I probably will at some point! Maybe someone will gift me with one to try out . . .

I really hope you succeed in harvesting your own tea! That would be amazing! Even if it is just one cup's worth at first, that would be so wonderful to be able to do.

[kayahtik]

Now we all know why Jelly is such a fan of Shrubbery in all its variations! 

   

[jellysundae]

11 minutes ago, kayahtik said:

Now we all know why Jelly is such a fan of Shrubbery in all its variations! 

   

HAHAHA

At least I can't kill those!

[GillyTook]

It's a Pilea glauca.  I'd never heard of it until a plant grower in the states that I follow on FB gave one away in a contest :)  It's a cute hairy looking little thing, though, so I like it!  I'm kinda jealous of your pereromioides!  I have been wanting one, but most of the sites I've seen them for sale on they're $20+ for a starter size, and I'm not quite that in love with them!

[jellysundae]

9 hours ago, GillyTook said:

It's a Pilea glauca.  I'd never heard of it until a plant grower in the states that I follow on FB gave one away in a contest :)  It's a cute hairy looking little thing, though, so I like it!  I'm kinda jealous of your pereromioides!  I have been wanting one, but most of the sites I've seen them for sale on they're $20+ for a starter size, and I'm not quite that in love with them!

That is cute, looks quite similar to my Depressa (I wish that had a nicer name!), even more so when you got it for free.

I've realised that there's a seriously weird phenomenon going on with the Peperomioides! They are a REALLY popular plant, totally trending right now, but hardly any nurseries etc. sell them.  I got mine on Ebay from someone who sells the babies/cuttings of their own plants, don't think they cost much more that £5 for the two . . . seems places like Ebay, social media and plant swaps etc. are the way most people get them because the shops are missing out on this goldmine right under their noses.

$20 for a baby is ridiculous though. These pop out babies willy-nilly from what the people who grow them say, if I don't kill mine I'm expecting to have an entire family of them before this year is out, lol, so charging that much for a little plant is pure greed. I suppose they're playing on the apparent rarity of them.  :^/

[GillyTook]

I could possibly see that they are slightly more rare in the states, leading to higher pricing. . . but everything I've read says they're super easy to grow/propagate, so yes, definitely greedy.

 

This is the site I first ran across them on, and no.  Just, no.  I'm NOT paying $40 (I think just under $30 in your currency?) for a 6 cm pot!!!  https://www.logees.com/browse-by-botanical-name/pilea/chinese-money-plant.html 

[rntracy1]

17 hours ago, jellysundae said:

HAHAHA

At least I can't kill those!

 I guess you could find a way. LOL.  I had an aloe plant.  It was a nice size.  It hardly ever needed water.  I think I got it about 11-12 yrs ago.  It kept creating "pups" or off shoots.  I would take those and re-pot them.  I would give them away to friends.  I had a summer school class with Special Ed children.  They were great kids.  They were non verbal, in wheel chairs, most of them could not even move their limbs without help.  But when you would speak to them and interact with them, their faces would light up.  They would smile and laugh.  It was awesome.  I loved doing that.  By this time, I had like 5 or 6 aloe plants with many pups.  We had 6 or 7 kids in the class.  The teacher wanted to send them home, at the end of the summer, with something special that correlated to what they had been working on in school.  Which was nature.  I suggested an aloe plant.  She LOVED the idea.  She said, "do you have enough for every kid?"  I said that I did.  I took Dixie cups and transferred a pup into each one for each of the kids to bring home.  In their daily progress journal, we gave the parent instructions on re-potting it and how to care for it.  I wonder how they are doing with THEIR aloe plants.  I still have 4 of my own that are still producing pups.  I put a watering globe in it, when it goes dry I fill it up again.  I love the globes too.  Honestly, the aloe plants are the ONLY plant I have managed NOT to kill yet.  LOL.

[jellysundae]

@rntracy1 I got some of those watering globes after you mentioned them before, but I couldn't work out how to get them to work, this is the level I have sunk to, lol. I made sure to water the plant first so it went into damp soil, I remembered you saying they'd empty themselves immediately otherwise, and I got it in ok and it didn't all drain out in an hour. But days went past and the soil all around it was drying out and the globe was still completely full. Huh, what was going on here then! I gave it a tiny twist, air bubbles rose to the top, and it emptied itself within an hour That's what's happened any time I've tried them, or they drain out immediately ofc. Seems these are just too technical for me! 

I have a nice big aloe, I spotted a little pup yesterday which I'll remove and pot up once it's a bit bigger. This plant has been my bestest friend when my stupid disease has made me burn myself! I cut a leaf off, cut a section big enough to cover the burn, slit the outer skin off the inside edge then stick it, gel side down, to my arm with a big bit of sticking plaster. Leave it on overnight and in the morning the gel will all have been absorbed and the outer bit of the leaf will be all thin and limp, and the burn will be almost gone. IT'S LIKE MAGIC!

Mine hardly EVER gets watered, lol. But it doesn't seem to care. xD In its original incarnation I pretty much completely ignored it, until its pot was completely FULL with pups that had all grown to the same size as the parent plant, and they were all straggly and weedy. Got my act together this time though as I remove any pups so they don't sap the life out of the main plant, so it looks strong and healthy and awesome.

I hope the kids' plants are still alive! They'd be sure to get a lot of pleasure from them.

[pulpfreeoj]

12 hours ago, jellysundae said:

Mine hardly EVER gets watered, lol. But it doesn't seem to care. xD

Aloe are like Hens and Chicks that way- I find they're harder to overwater than cacti while still requiring very little water.

My family are all notorious black thumbs, but I used to have a big pot of hens and chicks that was given to me that I used to just leave outside. I don't know how the winters didn't kill it but it seemed to do well and even grew quite big. I left it behind when we moved once and I've missed it ever since. Then recently my mom gave me a small pot of them that was given to her as a gift. I'm kind of worried it doesn't get enough sun in my window (this one will be an indoor plant) but it seems to be thriving so far. I might see if I can identify which exact species it is, if I can.

I'm a big fan of succulents- they are very interesting to look at and learn about, some of them like aloe are even particularly useful, and they're hard to kill. 

[jellysundae]

6 hours ago, pulpfreeoj said:

I'm a big fan of succulents- they are very interesting to look at and learn about, some of them like aloe are even particularly useful, and they're hard to kill. 

I used to hate succulents, I think maybe because just about all of my life the only ones I ever saw were ugly things to me. It's really only in the last few years that succulents have gone mainstream if you like, here in the UK, and suddenly you see all these pretty things, in amazing colours, and realise just how nice they can be!

Also it's quite clear my tastes have changed. All my life I hated House Leeks, I Google them just now and see those are the Hens and Chicks you're talking about, and I don't hate them at all now, lol. So it seems I just needed to grow into succulents?

As an aside, why on EARTH do we in the UK call them House Leeks? That's the most random name ever.

 

[sajixx]

On the bright side, seeing this thread on the side of the dailies page has been reminding me to water my plant. It's a purple passion plant!

[jellysundae]

5 minutes ago, sajixx said:

On the bright side, seeing this thread on the side of the dailies page has been reminding me to water my plant. It's a purple passion plant!

Happy to be of service to you and your plant!

[Mouseykins]

How's your plant doing now @jellysundae?

I have an Easter Lily that I saved from last year and for some miraculous reason the darn thing is still alive and I'm pretty sure it got cold. I thought it had died and put it on my back deck to be disposed of in the spring. It was warm-ish in the fall and we had some snow. I cleaned off my back deck for some reason and it was there. I cleaned off the snow from the top of the pot and noticed green shoots in it. I took it inside and put it on top of my fridge to get some good morning sunlight. It grew to the point that it was touching the ceiling and had nowhere to go but sideways. So now it's the leaning Easter Lily. I put it in a larger pot and have a wood dowel in the dirt that it's tied to, in order to keep it upright. A couple months ago it started to bloom with a flower bud, but it never opened.

It still hasn't opened and it's being watered frequently. Kind of makes me sad since I was hoping to have it blooming for Easter and that hasn't happened.

It's still green so all hope is not lost yet I guess.

[jellysundae]

@Mouseykins I ditched the broken off vine from my philodendron, huge wishful thinking on my part that the end of it would root, seemed it couldn't even take in water as the air roots at that end were 3 years old and completely dried out. So the leaves just got gradually more limp and dull so I had to say a sad goodbye to it. The growing end is sat in a glass of water on my desk, doing nothing in particular but still looking healthy, the 2 tiny rooted shoots that shared the main plant's pot are also doing nothing, so all I can do at the moment is wait and hope!

I wonder if your lily would have liked it better if it had stayed outside. Are Easter lilies a thing in the US because lilies actually flower at Easter, or are they forced to do so by nurseries? I know nothing about lilies apart from a vague feeling that they flower naturally in the summer. My Nan gave me an amaryllis bulb one Christmas, and I let that grow normally rather than trying to force it to flower at Christmas, and it flowered around this time of year then without any interference from me.

Your lily might just be confused, bless it. The sudden temperature change when you brought it indoors means it's got no idea what the actual time of year is, so that might explain why the bud never opened. I think I'm slowly learning about my plants. I have 2 different hoyas that both had buds form, to my terror and delight, lol. These buds; one plant had one when I got it last year, the other produced one at the beginning of winter. Both lost them though, they went brown and dropped off, but both have new ones forming now. So I figured with the others it was just the wrong time of the year. I'm hopeful for a successful blooming because hoya flowers apparently smell amazing!