The Plant Thread

[Heart Of Midnight]

You all have wonderful plants! 

  Only today I managed to buy bags of garden soil with my mother from the garden store. We lifted them together into the trunk of the car so that I didn't get hurt so much. Alone it wouldn't have come to anything because they are big sacks and I still have some pain in my side. Although there is no new soil in the "plant boxes" yet, the chives and a few other herbs are still alive. Someday this week we plan to fix them up, as long as the heat subsides a little.

[Taffeta]

I just repotted my dragon tree, Nikolai.

It's not my favourite task. I got covered in soil, as usual. But I'm glad I did it.

He doesn't like bright sunlight and he dries out quickly at this time of the year. His leaves are beginning to show stress so I wanted to check his roots as well, make sure they were healthy (they are) and nothing else was going on. Repotting him is an annual thing as well, so he hasn't been repotted for a year.

I also forgot to wear my gloves, which I usually do when messing around with soil. From his perspective, it was probably a bonus as there wasn't any cross-contamination with outside soil (Nik is 100% indoor, and so I'm careful not to expose him to outside soil/ants/anything that might irritate him. The last time that happened, he got munched by a vine weevil, it wasn't pretty...).

So the no gloves was a good thing for him. But not so much for me. Finally soil free.

Hoping I can avoid repotting the poinsettia this year. She's looking happy as she is and as hard as it is to repot Nik, Poinsettia is worse x100.

[Heart Of Midnight]

I don't have anything to photograph in my "plant boxes" yet, so I'll post a few pictures of the pansies. 

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And one other picture with some lily and some flowering bush whose name in English I don't know.

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[Ponyfan]

Plants this week

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Mint 1

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Mint 2

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lavender


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strawberry


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Ficus


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mom's aloe


I'm thinking about redoing the plant sticks using larger craft sticks. I also made up new dish soap spray and sprayed the plants (not the aloe though since I wasn't sure if it would harm it).


Ponyfan

[BlackCurtains]

The mints are turning into bushes

[Ponyfan]

They are   I probably need to cut some of them back

I've noticed this on some of the strawberry leaves.  Does anyone know what it is? This is my first strawberry plant, so I'm not sure if it's normal or not.


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Ponyfan

[Heart Of Midnight]

A little more summer flower photos and my "plant boxes" which are still in progress. 

Lovely petunia!

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The irises were wonderful for a while, but now the bloom is starting to pass.

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And here are my ugly boxes.  Sorry for my wild garden, I haven't been able/dared to mow the lawn because of the pain.

The box in the foreground is growing a couple of strawberries, chocolate mint and lovage (which can't be seen properly in the photo). The chocolate mint has gone wild so I need to remove it a little more. After taking the pictures, I planted 3 dahlias and runner beans in this box in the foreground.

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Another box has chives, parsley (really small!), basil, oregano and thyme. I thought I would plant some summer flowers there.

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A close-up of a strawberry in better shape.

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[BlackCurtains]

There's nothing ugly about your garden at all! It looks wonderful

[Ponyfan]

Your garden looks nice Heart of Midnight.

Here's my pics of the plants.
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Several of the leaves on both mint plants look like this.  We had 100F or over everyday for a week.  I made sure to water the plants everyday.  I watered them yesterday, but it rained in the afternoon and again this morning.  I'm hoping these leaves don't mean the plants are getting too much water.

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Mint 1

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Mint 2


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I'm starting to wonder about the lavender.  The stems seems to be growing but other than the one purple flower, it doesn't seem to be making flowers.  There were a couple of things that looked like they might turn in to flowers, but they never blossomed and look dead.

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I can't tell if the strawberry is doing well either.  Maybe I'm starting to overthink everything and worry about nothing.


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mom's aloe



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Ficus

I think there's new growth on the Ficus tree.


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Ponyfan

[Beldarna]

We got a bit of rain for a couple of days and my pallet exploded!

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Look at that strawberry!


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Harvested this one on Midsummers eve. I don't eat them but hubby love them.

[Dragonflitter]

Oh wow! A 38 page thread about plants! 

You guys are all amazing! I really admire people with a green thumb!

My whole life I've had a black thumb, but just recently (maybe the last six months) I've started getting serious about raising succulents. It doesn't come easy to me, I messed up a bunch of times and all my early plants died. So I started trying harder and watching a ton of YouTube videos and learning, and the ones I have now seem to be doing pretty well. I'm proud of myself! I feel like a real plant mom.

If you guys don't mind, I'd love to show off my set up. It's small compared to what you guys have created in these pages, but I don't have a lot of people who look at my plants, so I could't miss this opportunity. :3

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The first photo is my outdoor display. These guys need a lot of sunlight. The two at the top are called Topsy Turvy, because their leaves are shaped like they're upside down. They are my favorite. I love how they look! The smaller one has a long neck because he survived the winter indoors without much sunlight, while the bigger guy isn't a year old yet.

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The middle guy, with the giant leaves, is called dragonfire. Yeah, I specifically bought him because he's called that. He's quickly becoming my favorite because he grows super fast. Those big leaves in the center are new, and I've only had him for a month!

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The two smaller guys on the end are called Gasteria Flow (white container) and Perle Von Nurnberg (pinkish gal in the blue container).

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The leafy guys in the giant blue container on the ground are Cosmos flowers, planted from seeds. All my other plants I bought from stores already growing, so this is my first attempt at starting something from scratch. It should have flowers by late July or August! Maybe. If I do it right.

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Next photo is the guys who don't like a lot of intense sunlight, so they stay in the screened-in front porch. The floppy guy on the right is my tiger tooth aloe. He's my oldest plant, from 2021.

The middle tray is some new succulents I'm trying to grow from leaves! This is called propagating. Succulents are great for this because if you pull a leaf off, each leaf can grow into a new plant. They're just starting to get roots now! I'm so excited it's actually working. I've tried propagating before and it never worked. These leaves are all Graptopetalum. They come from my Graptopetalum plant that was drooping badly, so I tried trimming it to get it back into shape.

The oval container on the left is a catch-all for some tiny succulents. (Smaller succulents don't like bright sunlight.) In there I have two pups from the Perle Von Nurnberg outside, three Crassula (the thin green guys standing straight up) and one Graptopetalum (the purplish guy, who is the one that I took the leaves from to propagate).

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The last photo is my indoor guys, who don't like a lot of light at all, so they live in my room. From left to right we have Hypoestes Pink Splash, a Crinkle Leaf Fern, and an Easter cactus.

The only things I have that aren't succulents are the Cosmos flowers, the Pink Splash, and the Crinkle Leaf Fern. I like thinking of myself as a succulent gardener. 

I still have a lot to learn, but it feels good being a plant mom!

[Ponyfan]

You have beautiful plants Dragonflitter.   I almost got a succulent today just because of your lovely pictures. 

I felt sorry for this sage plant at Walmart.  The Walmart I went to is just about out of summer/spring plants and this little guy was the last sage plant left.  He was surrounded by dead and dying plants and his soil was bone dry.  I really think the employees have given up on trying to water the plants.  He still looked like he had plenty of life left and would do well as long as someone gave him water and a chance to grow.  I bought him and brought him home with me.


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Ponyfan

[BlackCurtains]

I'd like to get a proper patio table with a little succulent planter one of these days Your plants are wonderful, Dragonflitter!

Ponyfan, aw! That's so sweet you wanted to rescue him <3

[Ponyfan]

Another pic of the sage.  Those two long dead leaves/stems broke off in my hand this morning when I was going to cut them off.  I think this angle shows off how much life he has left more than my last pic.


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Ponyfan

[BlackCurtains]

Aw, I bet he's happy he has a good home now Sage smells so good.

I'm a bad plant parent. Ben has been needing water for a few days now and I keep meaning to let him soak in the sink, but then I forget and the sink is being used for something else. I should just fill a pitcher and water him where he is. He's all droopy and shriveled.