African Violets.

I wanted primroses. I was under the (perhaps erroneous) delusion that primroses have a better chance of survival under my care than African Violets (which, to be honest, I haven't done too badly with in the past). I searched for primroses. I could not find primroses. Turns out I decided I wanted primroses a good month or more after primroses were available in the retail stores… Oops.

So I ended up with African Violets anyway. Half-priced African Violets, tis true, but that makes them no less deserving of care. And they were in splendid shape for clearance flowers.

Three weeks and counting, and I only forgot about them for a week. A week which they survived. (It doesn't hurt to let them go a little bit dry every now and then. Overwatering is actually more likely to kill houseplants than underwatering.)

They aren't in a window where I can enjoy them in the normal run of things, so I decided to play with my macro lens and my two favorite Photoshop filters, Watercolor and Dry Brush. And the photos will last forever, no matter how well (or not) I do by the plants.

The blue isn't really blue; it's more standard African Violet purple. And the pink isn't really hot pink, it's more burgundy. Whatever.)

Hosta Takeover.

(hosta/hostile...get it?) This crazy plant has been so happy this year it has spread across more than half the width of my front deck.

I loved it in that location, but it has been banished to a little niche in front of the deck because I wanted as much floor space as possible for the Monsteras and Philodendrons.

Uh-oh... She lost a handful of leaves but Big Momma M made it through the winter, as did the little ones. The tree Philos are looking a bit more worse for wear but they survived as well. *sigh* I need a bigger front deck.

No. Willpower. Whatsoever.

Dracaena reflexa
I only went in to purchase a pressure washer. To clean the decks in order to put out all of the houseplants I already own.


Can't believe I spent what I did on this. I may buy too many houseplants, but I buy 'em cheap.

Forgot I needed pipe brackets, too. I have to go back. ::whimper::

PRIORITIES

Didn’t get a lick of housework done yesterday. Or yard work, for that matter. (What will the new neighbors think?*)


But I now have a really cool dish garden… (Yes, that’s moss. And a dead tree branch with lichen. So?)


* Not that I much care. They knew what they were getting when they bought the (abandoned and foreclosed upon) place. If they can put up with bulldozers, a crane and dump trucks (and a [steam] roller?!) in their front yard, what’s to fuss about a broken split rail fence, some downed privacy panels and a wild tangle of vegetation in the backyard? Although I do wonder if anybody told them about the ticks… Eh, they’ll find out soon enough.

I HAVE A PROBLEM.

A plant problem. A problem with plants, that is. I haven't been able to fix it...

If I pass a poor on-its-way out retail store plant (or one that miraculously is still in relatively good condition, or new off the delivery truck) that happens to be a personal favorite, I simply cannot leave it to die a slow and lingering death in its too dark/too bright/over-watered/under-watered location. Better that it comes home with me and I make an attempt to save it. Being able to actually keep it alive for many, many times longer than it would otherwise have managed is another matter entirely, but certainly it's the thought and the effort made that count.

It could be worse. I don't bring home every such plant I see; for one thing, caring for the orphans would become a full-time job—at least three stores I regularly visit have what they call houseplant "departments". (If I had the time and the money to try, it is conceivable that I could possibly, eventually, make such a lack of willpower pay somehow.) I try not to rescue plants I know nothing about, or those whose like I have killed in the past. That was a hard lesson to learn, but I just passed up—for the second time!—Alocasias still in decent shape, even though I now know where to find growing tips for keeping them alive outside of a greenhouse. Of course, I was more able to resist their lure because I already had this…


…in the truck from an earlier stop. * sigh * I would happen to notice the sale sign. And then stop to look over the offerings more closely only to find this specimen smack in the middle of the store, pining away. Look closely—new leaves turning yellow. Oh, the horror. Such spirit must be succored! Never mind that other Philodendron selloum I rescued earlier in the summer…

Speaking of this awful trend towards collecting monstrous plants (thinking it's ok because I think I know where to keep them all for the winter—and believing, perhaps erroneously, that I will be able to actually find a place to set myself down on even the large deck next summer when they all go outside again, assuming they all survive the winter) in addition to rooting two cuttings from the lanky, neglected Monstera baby I've had for years, I succeeded in making a brand new one! Just add water and…


Presto! Well, she's not quite there yet, but a leaf sprout, two leaf buds, an actual root and a root bud is a far cry from the long, leafless stem I had pruned off the Baby M. Having past experience sticking pothos stems in water, and being continuously amazed at a plant's ability to regenerate itself from very little, I had a hunch I could force some growth on this bit. (I have since trimmed off that yellow bottom section; it is no longer living tissue.) When there is more root and leaf, this new plant will go to help fill in the pot with the other two rooted cuttings. That will technically be only three Monsteras, two of which are still relatively small. Especially compared to Big Momma (no relation), who is by this time completely out of control (I might need to propagate a few of her stems next) but providing such a lovely background for these photos…


Baby Monster itself is thriving spending its first summer outside, as evidenced by lovely (if the slightest bit sunburned) new leaves and hordes of aerial roots, most now sunk back into the soil of its pot. (I wasn't paying attention as the heat wave went on and on and on and the mosquitoes finally descended en masse: at least one of Big Momma's aerial roots dug into a pot that wasn't hers…) And lookee---


Baby's first split leaf!!! I'm so proud.

In early August, I (some would say unwisely) took a stroll through the Big K's outdoor section to see what plant inventory remained and was still managing to hang on. I, as you might say, hit pay dirt. A half price Mandevilla (that I haven't yet wrapped around a trellis as I promised, but that the goldfinches haven't yet found—they inexplicably tore all of the flowers off the last mandevilla I had some years ago), a half-price hibiscus (which I didn't need at all given that it’s identical to one I picked up last year; but last year's is still recovering from a rough winter and has yet to bloom, so there!), and little potted houseplants for only a dollar each. The wandering jews had wandered so well that I think one of the two I picked up originally started in a different pot altogether…


Looking even better after a few weeks of consistent and constant watering. (Going to be some unhappy stems on this plant: in taking this photo I took them out of the water-filled saucer they were rooting themselves in…) By some miracle, a few bird's nest and rabbit's foot ferns were also still alive, even in full, glaring, summer sun. The rabbit's foot was shorter and denser than any I've ever seen (but has since grown taller), and amazingly only a few leaves on the bird's nests were sunburned… I'll take two each, thank you very much.


Ooh, nice big new leaves! What a happy plant. While pondering how to keep somewhat specialty ferns alive in a dry house over the winter, I finally hit upon an obvious solution.


Self-watering pots are not just for African violets! I had some success with those plants a few years back (even to the point of getting a mess of babies from a leaf stuck in soil—talk about a plant's truly remarkable ability to regenerate!) but neglect took its toll and I have had a handful of these pots about the house collecting dust for the past few years. (Some of my best African violets were actually growing in glass votive candle holders, anyway.)


Voilá! The fittonia (a plant acquired against my own rule of "don't buy it if you don't know what it is or how to grow it"—I still have a ways to go kicking this habit), who had wilted flat on me at least three times over the winter and once when out on the hot deck this summer, loves having its feet constantly wet…

Now if I can just forget about that really tall, quite stunning Draceana marginata tricolor I saw last week at the supermarket (on sale, of course). It was an older plant and might even have been tall enough (and thick-stemmed enough) to escape grazing cats...

FLOWERS ARE FINE...

But leaves are better.

Even allowing for the fact that the local ungulates, while not yet so populous as to have a grazed a browse line around my acreage, will still eat--or at least taste--any vegetation within reach (I have an ok photo of a whitetail enjoying ripe wild cherries straight off the tree that I'll post at some point), I finally realized that I may lean more towards houseplants rather than landscape plants simply because the tropical stuff has such fantastic foliage. Well, houseplants are green all year 'round, too. (Assuming I can keep them alive.) That's their real attraction. But still, how can you resist leaves like these?


The Monstera is becoming, well, truly monstrous. The new leaves (of which there are now another half dozen and more) are at or just beyond 15" and I don't think they are done yet.


Caladium. I had tried these once before, years ago; can't remember if I started the tubers myself, but I'm pretty certain that the plants never made it through the summer. This one is already twice as tall as it was when purchased, and may need to be potted up. Again.


Also a Caladium. A really tall caladium; 37" this morning, no telling how much height it gained today. As it is, it's tied up to keep it out of the way. And what's with the runners? Aren't tubers good enough? This one will soon need potting up. Also again. And I might need to scatter little pots about in which to root the plantlets popping up on the ends of all of those blasted runners... It was starting to send out a few when I purchased it, but I was more concerned with keeping the entire dratted thing alive, period, not about it taking over my front steps. (Could be worse: some caladium species, appropriately named Elephant Ears--which this one was tagged as, actually/eep--have leaves a couple of feet across.)


Cyperus. Another wetland plant posing innocently as a houseplant. This is going to be a tricky one to keep the cats out of when it comes inside...those leaves will be way too tempting. I had a decorative cage I was going to use for whatever protection it would afford, but this one took off as well: the tallest frond now rises a good 28". I don't know if the dove cage gets enough light to see the cyperus through the winter; the budgie cage does, but I fear those little blighters would shred the plant to bits even faster than the cats.


Philodendron selloum, aka (Lacy) Tree Philodendron. This is a young plant; the newer leaves are each coming in "lacier" than the ones before.


Oh, I haven't yet mentioned my lapse of a few weeks ago, have I? But I simply had to have this beauty. Hey, they don't climb or vine! They, um, just grow sideways... (This one isn't as large as it looks; it's still in its gallon growers pot sitting on the blue pot into which it should, maybe, fit when I get around to repotting it. Hmm.) But my mother had one that stayed beautifully self-contained for many years! Yeah, so I discovered before I rescued this one from a local grocery store that a high-school classmate has had one for the past 23 years and it takes up half of his rather large living room... Your point??? Surely I've mentioned before that I have no self-control or will power whatsoever.

DAY ON THE DECK

Porch deck, that is. Spent the entire day yesterday puttering around my little front deck. It is on the smallish side, relatively speaking, and having it packed with both outdoor flowers and indoor plants out for the summer means it's now even smaller. I'd like to extend it, and I have the room to do so, but… Well, a wild grape appeared in the "garden" just off the front of the deck some years ago; "Yes!" I thought, and took the opportunity to train the vine all along the front rail. And then it went up into the mulberry tree. And then all along the step railing… Which means by now it is quite well established—and smack in the middle of what could have been the deck expansion. Oh. Oops.


At least that's one way to rein in my natural tendency to fill in blank spaces. When it comes to the deck, this means potted plants. Lots of potted plants. Have to use pots and the deck, given that the yard hasn't been mowed in about five years and the deer would eat anything I put out there anyway. (As it is, I'm convinced that one day some enterprising, or very hungry, deer will eventually figure out the steps.) Not increasing the space at least means I won't have to water more than I already am. (And for any of you who container-garden, you know how frequently that can be. Naturally, after watering two days in a row, we finally managed to get a bit of rain last night.)


Even though I have yet to catch a deer on the deck, there is a lot of fauna that does drop in for a visit, such as this red admiral, just waking up first thing in the morning. (It didn't like me sticking a camera in its face and it left, perhaps sooner than it wanted to. Oops.)


I went to water a pot for the second time later in the afternoon, and noticed an unexpected pattern in the soil.


Hello, Mr. Toad!


Er, Mrs. Toad? I've seen dozens of Bufos (Fowler's; I don't have the species name to hand) in the dozen years I've been here—some even a bright brick red all over, very cool; this one had red spots—but this specimen has to be the biggest one ever.


Speaking of specimens… I didn't need a(nother) specimen plant. I mean, I love them, but my house really isn't as humid in the winter as it should be to keep most of the normal-sized plants happy three or four months out of the year, never mind the giant ones. (It is quite humid this summer, however; my hoya is growing again and is putting out aerial roots now as well as new leaves.) I can usually keep my large ficus under control with a good pruning, and the once-full-sized schefflera has become rather stunted (the dry conditions and a really, really bad case of scale), but I did know full well what I would be getting myself in for with this one...


There's a reason this plant's genus name is Monstera; the black bench whose end you can just see to the left, peeking out from under the foliage, is about five or six feet long. Eep. Evidence indeed of my extreme lack of will power; I found a nice-sized, still-in-decent-shape plant at Wallyworld late last summer and telling myself I'd already killed one or two baby monsteras over the years didn't stop me from buying it. Much to my surprise, however, it not only survived the dry winter in a sunny window in the cat room, as soon as I started upping its water it responded by popping out a half a dozen new leaves. At least one new shoot is even peeking up from the root crown. Yikes. I'm going to need a hand cart to get the sucker back inside this fall. (And its new support stake is likely going to have to be anchored to a wall stud.) I may be able/tempted to take some cuttings if it gets too broad to wrangle up the stairs. (And then I can have a house full of monster plants. What on earth was I thinking??? [Um, well, that it wouldn't survive…])


Also known as split-leaved philodendron for obvious reasons, although I prefer it's scientific name Monstera deliciosa. Delicious indeed! This is pretty much what broke my will; I love the leaves of these plants. The one baby I have managed to keep alive over the years hasn't been happy enough to produce the split leaves yet. (It's a matter of plant age and growing conditions.) I'm hoping that new soil and a summer on the deck helps. I suppose it's ridiculous to hope that it will have small split leaves instead of platter-sized leaves?


White coral bells, upon a slender stalk… (Bet you get stuck singing that song off on and for the rest of the day if you know it.) Also in a pot on the deck and happier than ever this year. The hostas (started with just one plant rescued from the "garden" where the grape came up) are going gang-busters in their new huge pot as well. Maybe I'll post photos when the buds open...

WHAT THE HOYA?!

It started as a rescue. (Yes, I rescue plants as well as cats.) The satisfaction of a month-late "must have green things NOW" urge. (I usually go a bit overboard buying houseplants when I am no longer able to abide winter's lack of green growing things; typically I last until February before succumbing. This year I made it into March! And I brought home less than half a dozen, thank you very much. I wouldn't even have picked up the orchid if it hadn't jumped off the display behind me and broken its clay to-hide-plastic-grower's-pot pot; what else was I to do other than say "heck, yes!" when it was offered to me for half price? It's currently on my desk at work, impressing the hell out of my co-workers. "Is that a real flower?")


(Not the hoya. Don't-care-what-kind-as-long-as-I-can-keep-it-alive orchid, peace lily behind, dry thing is an iris seed pod.)

Retailers are fully aware of this need-green-growing-things-in-February condition, and plan their first shipments of houseplants accordingly. So there was this green thing at Wallyworld, still in relatively good shape after a few weeks of life in the indoor/outdoor section of the store. Not a bad price for the amount of plant in the pot. Mis-marked label, but I happened to know what it really was. (This time; on rare—thankfully rare—occasions I have brought home plants I can't ID at the store. That rarely turns out well for the plant. Although my last plant purchase at the Big W netted me a lovely no-idea-what-it-is-but-isn't-it-pretty? that I have managed to allow to wilt flat twice and which has sprung back obligingly both times. What are they doing selling terrarium plants disguised as potted houseplants, anyway???)

Where was I? Oh, the hoya. So I found this lovely hoya, twining attractively up its little bamboo trellis. I bought it with half a mind that I may need it to replace at least one of the plants I may have killed while plant-sitting for my aunt. I may have been able to ID the plant before purchase, but I had to look up the specifics in my houseplant book when we arrived home. (Aunt, you may want to give your hoyas trellises… Some [not all, the plant forum tells me] of them are climbers!)


(Look at those lovely, compact little leaves... Three and a half inches, tops. Remember these.)

Ok, not so bad, I can do this. I especially liked the "repot as a last resort" bit. I don't like repotting; I never feel it goes well. (For every few successes there is at least one abysmal failure: my five or so year-old ming aralia [you can't always believe the books; this "not a houseplant" was going gang-busters for me for years] was crashing, so I recently repotted it. Suffice it to say that at least it seems to be sending out tentative shoots at every leaf scar, so it's not quite dead yet…)

I put the hoya in a sunny window. Its thick waxy leaves have not been (much of) a temptation for the cats. (Yay!) I'm getting the feel for when it needs water; it has reciprocated by not keeling over. Indeed, it had even sent out a couple of tentative tendrils (funky way of putting out new leaves, this plant). Some more water, some more tendrils.

And then this past week or so… WHAM! More little tendrils. A lot more little tendrils, which then sprouted little leaves which, in mere days, have become bigger leaves. Much bigger leaves. And what had been a nice, compact little perfectly-balanced and apparently happy-in-its-little-pot plant only a week ago has suddenly, practically overnight, become kudzu.


What happened to the nice little oval leaves? What happened to the nice little cream edges? My bought-in-ignorance on-a-whim little houseplant seems to be reverting to some kind of tropical monster! Those new leaves are 5 inches long and possibly still growing.

If this is the plant's way of thanking me for rescuing it—! *sigh* Guess I will have the chance to build it its own fancy copper trellis after all. Looks like it will be needed quite a bit sooner than expected, is all.


(Hmmm. It occurred to me as I was editing these photos to wonder if perhaps there are two different kinds of hoya here... Wouldn't surprise me; I bought hibiscus last year with two plants each of two different colors in the same pot.)