HousePlants

Lowe’s Website has a nice list of houseplants that are good for beginners (or those between a green and a brown thumb.

Lowe’s  

To bad not all of the plants listed at Lowe’s.com have pictures.

I have three out of the four plants pictured in the “Dracaena” section. The one I don’t have is at the bottom left of the picture.

I want one of these plants, “Schefflera”. My mother-in-law has one but I haven’t been able to sneak a cutting of it ( I have to sneak since she don’t like cutting her plants).

I wonder if Lowe’s ships plants? If so, I may have to order some. Where I live most of the stores have taken out their plant sections. The only place to get plants anymore is Walmart or Kmart (aside from swiping cuttings).

Soon I will be posting a list of places to buy houseplants online. I have to ‘research’ it for myself so I might as well share, lol.

P.S.  I could not find any plants to buy at Lowe’s.com, I guess I will have to go to a Lowe’s store.

 I have mixed feelings about putting different plants in the same pot. When it is done right it looks good (and hopefully the plants grow well together).   However, if you are not a good mixer you may end up with one or two dead plants.

I, myself, am not good at mixing plants.   I still try, but usually end up having to separate the plants. Example, a few post’s back I posted a picture of one of my attempts to mix and it isn’t going well.

During the last re-potting I mixed a mother-in-laws tongue and cutting of the plant pictured in the last post. So far, so good. The M.I.L.T. is not growing as fast as the other plant in the pot. I think I will have to separate them before to long.  The M.I.L.T. will end up lost in the other plant.   I was hoping to use the M.I.L.T as the holder for the other plant.  “In my head”, the climbing plant wrapped around the M.I.L.T. looked really cool but this attempt may not end the way I wanted it too.

I may try it with a older climbing plant.

I will get pictures of this up ASAP.

While surfing ( I was told people don’t use that word anymore, lol) I found this site. It is A university’s site so I trust the information more then I would one that wasn’t, lol

It has Pictures which I love and basic info about care of the plants.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/interiorscape/gallery/index.html (<–Copy and Paste)

Here is the plant that was pictured in the last post. “Pothos Ivy”

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/interiorscape/Epipremnum_aureum.html

I am not really sure what this plant is but that don’t really matter for this post. It is about the way it grows, many plant grow wildly without any way to hold it’s self up. If left unattended it will it dangle and grow on to anything it can reach.

Before I moved I had this plant growing on a Tomato Trellis. I kind of liked it because it made it more like a tree. I used it to block sunlight that would blind anyone sitting on my couch.   But with that trellis is was hard to move and I had to put it in a bigger pot then it needed with rocks in the bottom just to keep it from tipping over.
I put it in a smaller pot but didn’t really know what I was going to do with all the “vines”.  I had a bunch of metal hangers that I was throwing out, it came to me. I straighten two and put the criss-cross in the pot. sorry about the horrible drawing but it is just to give you any idea since you cannot really see it in the picture.  Just toss the “vines” over the hangers and just keep doing it until is doesn’t fall.

I did this to a few on my mother-in-laws plants that she was just letting hang. They all seem to like it.  I like that it makes them look full/bushy.  However I am going to have to find something to do with it soon because it is growing fast.   I do not really want to go back to the trellis, I would like to get some longer pieces of metal to do the same thing but bigger.

Since I have traumatized my plants moving I decided to give them all new soil. I even sprang for the good stuff. It has those fertilizer balls that continuously feed the plants. The bag says for up to 9 months.

During my re-potting I did some condensing. In some pots I put more then one plant. Some of the plants I buddy up were previously in pots together. I had given them separate pots thinking they needed more space. However they didn’t flourish like I thought they would. I guess they like being crowed.

This bunch of three isn’t doing very well. especially the one at the bottom. It is just dying.

The “leaves” are falling off and it seems to be drying up.

I am not sure what these plants are called. The plants in the top picture I got from my mother-in-law’s yard. My husband had it in as an indoor plant a few years before I met him and it ended up outside. It would die off in the winter and come back in the spring. From the first time I saw them I thought they looked like they should be inside, finally I asked if I could dig them up.

Since I have put them back in a pot and brought them inside, they haven’t died off in the winter (it has been indoors for 2 winters now). But on the other hand it hasn’t really done much growing. I would be more concerned if they didn’t look healthy. I am trying to find out the name of these plants. If anyone knows or has a guess, leave a comment!

The second and third picture are the plants that I got a while back (read that post) from Kmart. If anyone knows the names of these plants let me
know!

I will probably be separating these plants, maybe that will save them.

The other plants are loving the new soil. Some are growing like weeds, lol. I will get some updated pictures of my plants posted on here soon.

Now that my collection isn’t all crowed on my kitchen table it don’t look as big. now that they are scattered about I feel like I must get more, lol. I miss my mini jungle.

Reading through my posts and comments, I seen that someone scolded me for “giving advice” on things “I know nothing about”. I have never claimed to be a professional plant grower, nor have I ever said that I know everything about plants. I am just someone that loves plants in her house.

The comment made me laugh, but I thought I should make it clear that “I know nothing”, lol. I occasionally read up on a plant (not including the tag that comes with the plant), but mostly I learn by doing.

I wanted to grow some herbs this year, but I always think about starting them to close to winter. I had some curly leaf parsley I started from seeds but I neglected it for a few days and it died. Which is a shame, since it takes 3-4 weeks for it to germinate. All that waiting just to let it die.

The first time I thought about growing parsley I forgot about the seeds soaking overnight. When I remembered they were all dried up, I tried re-soaking them and planting the seeds anyways but they didn’t grow.

While my uncle was visiting and checking out my plants he told me he had a parsley plant indoors that was growing good. He said his was getting indirect light. I think that is part of the reason I can’t get parsley to grow for me. I had it in the wrong place. However, most of what I have read about growing parsley says it “grows in full sun”.

Last year I tried to start some outside but it didn’t make it. I have seen it growing outside in my area, so I know it can. Though, those plants were not in full sunlight all day. They got some direct sunlight in the evening (about 3-4 hours starting after 3pm). The climate in my area is warm in spring and hot in the summer so I guess that is why they don’t survive outdoors in all day sunlight.

I just think it is going to one of the plants that just don’t like me. Lol, but I love parsley and really want a plant so I could use fresh parsley in my food. Dried parsley just isn’t as good.

I have read that it is in the carrot family. Which makes sense, the leafs kind of look like the tops of carrots. Parsley is an excellent source of vitamins A and C.

It is a biennial but many treat it as an annual. It flowers in early summer of it second year, after flowering the foliage can become bitter and not be as good for cooking/eating. I wonder if by pinching off the flowers as then appear you can keep it from getting bitter? I will try that if I ever get one to that point.

I have to get more seeds before my next attempt at growing parsley, lol, however with my past I might be better off getting some established plants.

* Can be grown indoors/outdoors
* Takes 3-4 weeks to germinate
* Main types of parsley:flat leafed and curly leafed
* Is a natural breath fresher
* Harvesting: snip stalks close to the ground, starting with outer stalks,
(encourages new growth)