yuuago | Entries tagged with houseplants

+ Took today off because I Felt Like It. Plus I had to go to an appointment. (Didn't need the whole day for that, but like, figured I might as well....) Also, treated to myself to lunch, just because I could. Felt nice!

+ Repotted two of my plants. Two others got the boot - the pepperomia and the oyster plant are gonzo. I probably could have saved them, like I did last year when they were struggling, but I didn't feel motivated enough to make the effort. So, now I'm down to a christmas cactus and two snake plants. Not sure what I will replace the other two with. Last year I'd considered picking up one of the hens&chicks that the garden centre was selling, and just keep it as an indoor plant; I might end up actually doing that. It seems that plants that tolerate dryness and cold do well in my apartment.

+ Made lentil burgers. Used this recipe from Occasionally Eggs. Tasted pretty good; would make again. Next time I might mix it up a little - different spices, maybe include some diced bell pepper. Though, I really suck at making patties. Maybe that's something that comes with practice? I've only tried making burgers a few times.

+ Took the book version of Conclave out from the library. Looking forward to it. The movie was pretty good, but the nice thing about books is that you usually get more deeply into at least one character's head.

+ I was surprised to see a lot of people on the Latest Things page posting their first entry in a new journal. Turns out some people are considering making a jump from Tumblr to DW due to some issues going on over there (staff layoffs etc). Well, DW's a very different kind of site, but I hope they enjoy it. I think it would be a good match for people who like textposting.

I was going to write about all the things I did today, but man, I'm just tired.

Repotted my peperomia. It was getting too big for the one that it was in; we'll see if it likes the larger pot better. More root room.

Also planted a lettuce. Like, a lettuce I bought at the grocery store. It was the kind that you buy with the root balls intact; I guess the logic is that it lasts longer in your fridge that way. Anyway, a few times, my mom has regrown the roots on the heads of romaine she bought at the grocery store, and planted them in the garden. This one's just indoors, on my window sill - hopefully since it has intact roots it'll have an easier time growing and filling out.

If that experiment fails, I'll just get another plant. Maybe some kind of cactus. :V

Repotted my pepperomia today.

It was having issues with yellow leaves. Stuff like that can be hard to troubleshoot, but since the planter it was in didn't have any drainage, I was worried it might be an overwatering issue, or maybe even root rot.

Turns out that's probably not it. Soil was dry, and the roots looked okay. Maybe it was an underwatering issue? But it's kind of hard to underwater a pepperomia - they aren't succulents, but they do prefer dryer soil than some houseplants out there.

Anyway, I stuffed it in a slightly larger planter with very good drainage, and hopefully that'll solve the problem. It's grown significantly since I brought it home a year or two ago, so maybe it just wanted more room. (And better drainage.) (Always with the drainage.)

And I cleaned up my patio too! Washed everything down, tidied it up, and now I could sit out there in the sun if I wanted. Hooray. Not quite done with it, since I haven't put anything in my planter, but that'll have to wait - up here, you can't really plant anything until after Victoria Day, or maybe the weekend after that, because we still get the occasional night where it hovers just above 0C. People try to put in flowers anyway, and then have so many regrets. I'd rather wait. ;p

+ Added a lemon lime Dracaena to my slowly-increasing plant collection. ;V I didn't set out today intending to get another plant! But it was calling to me - the bright yellow stripes are so striking. Might take a bit for me to find the exact perfect place for it, but we'll see. Apparently these plants can get really huge under ideal conditions, but uhh we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

+ The grocery also had some zebra plants in very cute fox planters and ngl, I was sorely tempted. But there was no price on them, and anything in a Cute Planter generally comes at a premium. (They were so cute, though.)

+ You know that thing where the symptoms of overwatering can be the same as symptoms of underwatering? Haaaa. My oyster plant is kind of finicky, but I think I figured out the problem. It was getting dried-up dead leaves, and also dried tips on otherwise healthy leaves; after trial and error I've figured out it needs to be watered much less frequently than I was previously doing. Unfortunately, it also wants higher ambient humidity; my apartment is very, very dry. In which case... yeah dude, same, but since I'm not about to buy a humidifier, we'll both just have to suffer. ;V ;V

+ I've been growing green onions from grocery store scraps. Just snip off the green part, put the white part with the roots in a jar of water, and watch 'em go! If you change the water every day or two, they pretty much look after themselves. It's pretty neat how fast they regenerate their tops. The root systems get crazy-wild, too. (And then you get free green onions, which is awesome.)

+ Ended up having to delete my

seasonsofdrabbles signup. Kind of bummed; I would have liked to join. I'd really love this new exchange to succeed, especially now that Multifandom Drabble has imploded. But there's just so much going on in my life right now that making any additional commitments would be a bad idea. Maybe I can still treat?

+ Took a new houseplant home today. I guess I figured "it's been a stressful week; I deserve a new plant", haha. There wasn't a label on it, but it looks like it might be a purple oyster plant/Rhoeo spathacea. Very striking green/striped leaves with purple on the underside. Really looking forward to getting to know this one. (And it came with its own ceramic planter, praise be. Hooray for proper drainage.)

+ Managed to get outside for a bit today. Went down to the park and read a while. Very relaxing, which is great - the past couple of weeks have been so much and I needed that... a lot.

+ I've had Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy out from the library for a... few weeks now, but it's only now that I've been able to sit down and settle into it properly, and I'm really enjoying it. I really like Le Carre's writing - I mean on a stylistic level, and stuff like voice and whatnot; the texture of it. The library got a bunch of his books in recently, so I think I'll have to check a few more out once I've finished this one.

+ I found out that there's going to be an English translation of Andre Bjerke's Lake of the Dead/De dødes tjern - it's due for release next year. A few years ago, I went through a strange period for about a month in which I'd watch the film adaptation of De dødes tjern once a week, because despite broadly falling under the label of thriller/horror movie, I found it very calming. I wouldn't say it's my favourite Norwegian film, or even my favourite Norwegian film that fits into the horror genre, but there's something weirdly compelling about it. Anyway - even though I rarely purchase new books, I'm honestly tempted to buy the English version of the novel, due to my strange fondness for the film.

I brought home a Hypoestes/Polkadot plant. Saw them when I was grocery shopping and just couldn't help myself.

There was also a very tempting pepperomia, different variety than the one I already have, buuuut I figured it might be nice to try something new. I guess if it doesn't work out, I can dump something else in the planter, since I did have to get a planter to put it in. HMMM.

Looked a little scruffy in the store, but turns out it just needed a good clean - there were some dead leaves that needed to be tidied up, but it looks pretty good now. It's in quarantine in my office for the time being. Apparently these grow pretty quickly, but I guess I'll have to see for myself.

Well, that violet my mom got me is pretty dead. I gave up on it.

I kind of want to try another one - like, I'm not sure if there was something wrong with that specific plant. Or it could be that my arrangement isn't great for that type of plant in general. I like the idea of African violets - they're so cute! - but I might need to try again before I decide whether or not they're for me. So, we'll see. Maybe.

On the upside, my pepperomia is still throwing up new leaves and flowering like whoa, so at least someone's doing well.

My snake plant fell out of its pot today. [/facepalm]

I was moving it to dust, and it just kind of flopped out, making a huge mess. Yikes.

I ended up taking everything out, rearranging/removing some of the marbles that I had at the bottom for ballast/drainage, and then repotting it - and putting in more soil. Hopefully it will Stay Put for now.

Though I'm once again reminded that I'm not entirely satisfied with the pot that it's currently in. What I'd ideally like would be to layer it - so I could have the plant/soil itself in a pot with lots of drainage holes, and then that fitting into a nicer-looking planter. SO after today's nonsense, I went looking for something more suitable. But nothing I saw in the store quite fit.

Not a big issue, though, and it can wait until I find something just right.

Finally watered the violet today. I have it in a double-layered setup, so I just poured some water in and left it alone for a while. Figured I'd pour any excess water out after 15 minutes or so, but there wasn't any. ! WELL I guess this "watering from the bottom" thing works pretty good after all. ;V

Plant update! :V

+ Peperomia: this one's doing very well. It's been putting out a bunch of new leaves, and it even has some flowers on it. Peperomia flowers aren't very pretty - they don't have petals, and they're shaped like rat tails - but the fact that it's flowering is very encouraging. This is the only indoor plant that I picked out myself, so I'm really pleased that it's working out. Not going to lie, I would get another one of these - they come in a lot of different colours and shapes, so it'd be easy to experiment with them without getting bored.

+ Christmas cactus: stopped flowering a while back, but it's growing some new leaves, hooray! Was looking a little droopy because I kept forgetting to water it (oops) but I took care of that and it seems to have forgiven me. ;p

+ Snake plant: idk. It's just chilling. Doing snake plant things. I don't know. I actually like snake plants a lot - my grandmother used to have an enormous one, and it looked really cool. But this one is pretty rough-looking; it came to me damaged and scarred, so it's not very attractive right now, and won't be until it grows some more. Which... might take a while, ha. I'm not particularly happy with the drainage on the pot that it's currently in, but finding a better option is a problem for Future Me.

+ African violet: I ended up trimming off half the leaves, since they looked so bad. Very, very brown. Yikes. The ones that I left look (mostly) okay, though there's some browning on them as well. I'm actually not sure whether this is due to its leaves getting wet in the store, or whether it was sunburned from too much light. So for now, I've put it in some indirect light, and I'll see what happens; I might experiment with light amounts once it gets new leaves. No water yet because it came to me absolutely soaked, and the soil's still damp. I'll be watering it from the bottom, I think, because I'm not very good at watering tidily.

+ Outdoors: I have some petunias and a geranium (well, okay, a pelargonium) in a small planter. I was concerned that my location wouldn't have enough sunlight for them; my apartment is northeast-ish-facing, with trees in front of it, and only really gets a lot of light in the morning. But they're doing pretty well. HOORAY. The colour choices are... questionable... dark red paired with coral; none of these had flowers on them when I picked them up to put the planter together, whoops. Next year I'll definitely make sure to pay more attention. ...Kind of thinking about re-using the same geranium, actually; my great grandmother used to bring hers inside in winter, force them to go dormant, and then re-plant them in the spring. I don't know how well it would work up here, but it'd be interesting to try.

☆ I've been listening to an audiobook of The Lives of Bees by Thomas D. Seeley. It's about how honey bees live in the wild. Really interesting stuff! I'm learning so many new things. (I didn't know that honey bees don't hibernate. ?!) I've never seen a honeybee in my life, but by the sound of it, the area I'm in isn't very hospitable for them, so that would explain it....

☆ It's been so hot lately. And so bright. The light even seeps in through the edges of the blackout curtains. Terrible. (But much, much better than what I was dealing with before, so there is that.) Given the option of extreme cold and heat warnings, I'll take the cold, thanks. At least when it's a question of "Can I sleep in this?".

☆ I keep acquiring houseplants! Or rather, people keep buying me houseplants. Somehow, I am now responsible for a little African Violet. It's looking very shabby, but it was purchased at the grocery store, so... who knows how long it's been like that. Hopefully I'll be able to troubleshoot it and get it healthy soon.

☆ Signups for

iddyiddybangbang start July 10th. Is anybody thinking of doing it this year? I'm considering it, but between commitments and a creative slump, I really don't know. ...On the other hand, I have a nearly-finished WIP draft that is so damn id-tastic that I'm kind of embarrassed by it, so maybe it'd be a good opportunity to finally complete it and get it out the door.

☆ Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries series got nominated for the 'Best Series' Hugo. Nice! I hope it wins. (Of course I say this on the strength of reading only two of the novels, but you know, I liked those a lot and plan to read the rest, so... there is that.) Speaking of Murderbot, I should put the third book on hold....

☆ Work continues to be absolutely crazypants. I've been trying to train somebody, but we haven't received all of the resources that we're supposed to get, so it's been kind of slow going. Meanwhile, I have double the volume of work that I might at other times, due to the season. Fun. ;P

☆ My houseplants are enjoying how bright it's been outside lately. I have a peperomia amigo and a zygo cactus by my front window; they seem to be easy enough plants, though who knows. I'm usually not... very good with plants, really - I mean, I'm excellent at taking care of them in industrial conditions (I worked in a garden centre for a while, and apparently the place has never looked so good as it did when I worked there!) but small-scale "taking care of one plant in a pot in my apartment" is another thing entirely.

☆ Webcomic rec: The Witch Door. About two neighbours who meet by chance. Once of them is a witch! A witch whose balcony door is actually a portal to other locations both mundane and supernatural. (The prologue starts in a supernatural place, but most of the story takes place in the regular world.) Not super long at this point - I read through it in a handful of hours - but there's enough to sink your teeth into, and the art is nice, and I'm enjoying some of the characters quite a bit. Ended up adding the feed so I can keep up with it, because its posting schedule is such that I wouldn't remember to check.
[*Note - one of the characters is experiencing biphobic bullying at work, so that subject does come up - I feel it's worked into her story well but it hits close to home in some ways, ouch, wouldn't want anybody to be blindsided by it]

☆ Very brief thoughts on MAG 140-143 ( Under the cut )