The Plant Thread

[Artemesia's Garden]

Ben looks like a crazy hippy basil! Right on Ben! I was also thinking remove it in case it's poisonous to your cat or you accidentally get it on your skin.

[BlackCurtains]

Ooh, I didn't think of Aster eating it! Yeah, it's gone.

Ben's leaves are wilting but the soil is moist. Maybe I should get some plant food.

[Ponyfan]

I'm glad you got rid of the mushroom, BC.

Has anyone had any success with filling plant saucers with water and letting the plants absorb it through the roots?  I usually water from the top down, but since i moved the plants in to the sunroom, it's a little harder to remove the saucers to dump them when they get full of water. 

I'm not sure how much longer the mints will last.  I'm finding a lot of dead leaves that have turned black that have fallen off.  There's still a lot of green healthy leaves too.


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

There is an argument that in some cases watering from the tray is better, as it encourages the roots to go down, rather than up towards the surface where they can be more easily damaged. I think letting them stand in water longterm is not always wise unless there's a special reason, but there's absolutely no problem watering a plant from the tray.

It's also a good way to know when your plant has enough, as if they aren't taking the water up, they don't need extra.

[BlackCurtains]

Ben is going down hill. All the leaves are wilted, but not yellow, so I watered him a bit even though the soil felt moist (that might be from the humidity?). I got some plant food for herbs and added that.

He's in the sink right now. I'm hoping this will work.

edit: He's perking up!

[Artemesia's Garden]

Soaking in the sink is a great idea and should work for the mints too. I do this with my cacti. I take them to the sink, fill it up and drain after 10 minutes. That way everything gets a good even soaking every couple of weeks and you don't have to worry about how much water to add.

Here's a thought, it's possible that the capillary action of the compost drawing water is not as good as it was when the compost was fresh. I can't remember when we last re-potted Ben. Something I noticed when I was growing a lot of Chrysanthemums is that once the potting compost dries out it's almost impossible to re-wet it evenly. Depending on where you water from it can occur in just the lower layers or just the top layer etc and can create pockets of dry soil or very wet soil which can rot the roots, but you may not be able to see it from looking at the surface.

On leaf shedding, I think the mint can be cut back and will re-grow fine, and I still think starting a few cuttings from Ben is a good idea, just in a jar of water. Then you have an insurance policy.

Not sure what to say about my guys really, except they dislike central heating and the lower light of winter indoors. I usually just try to keep them going by keeping them away from radiators, minimal watering, remove any flowers or dead leaves, trim back any longer branches from herbaceous ones.  I keep checking them for whitefly and aphids which usually become a problem in January/February.

[BlackCurtains]

I was thinking of repotting him, or actually just shaking out the soil from the roots and putting in fresh. The problem is he's so... wild and the pot lip is angled inwards, I'd be afraid of doing damage while trying to get him out. I don't like the pot he's in. I bought it because it looked nice and I liked the color, but I won't buy this kind ever again.

Good news is most of the leaves are rehydrated. Some of the longer stems are still weak and the leaf clusters are pulling them down, but I'm hoping as the water and food make the way up the roots those will perk up too.

[Ponyfan]

I hope Ben keeps perking up.

Watering the mints from the bottom seems to be working so far. Mint 1 draws the water up quickly while Mint 2 takes quite a bit longer.

I found a runner that died on Mint 1.  The leaves had all withered and broke off in my hand.  I tried to pull it out since it's dead, but it's still firmly attached to Mint 1. I wish I knew why it did.  Was it lack water or because there's not enough room in the pot for all of the runners?

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Here's a pic of some of Mint 1's leaves.  These are from the longest runner.

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Here's the weekly photo update on the mints.

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Mint 1

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Mint 2



How far would I need to cut the mints back? Would it be all the way base of the plants? I'm trying to hold back on repotting the mints until spring comes as our winters here can be crazy.


Ponyfan

[Artemesia's Garden]

Hmm, I'd say that branch with the yellowed leaves could be cut back to the base. For now, cut the few longest right back to the base and leave the newer, shorter ones to see how they get on. If the leaves fall off all of the stems definitely cut the whole thing back to the base and let it regenerate. Runners can die off just because they don't find any fertile space to grow in. So just trim them off or leave them, it doesn't really matter. I think a few woody bits are part of the character of a mint plant. I do think you're right to leave off re-potting until spring now because a sudden burst of nitrogen might not be ideal over the winter when the plant might not be growing as actively.

[pinkkittywinks]

I'm going to have to repot my venus fly trap, the roots have started growing out of the bottom of the pot I have ordered some special compost, but I don't think it is the right time of year to repot since it will go dormant soon.

My mint are looking bedraggled right now, they have lost leaves and have gone into winter mode.

Love pkw xxx

[Taffeta]

I took down the tower with the climbing plants today. I've tried to salvage some of the thunbergia, we'll see if they survive. The morning glories had long since finished, but I found three little morning glory seedlings growing in the soil of the pot. They won't survive outside so I potted them up and brought them in. We'll see what they do.

[pinkkittywinks]

I had no luck with Morning Glory what so ever, they got eaten and died when I put them outside

I tried again a year later and my kitten ate one of the seedlings resulting in a panicked phone call to the Animal Poison Hotline (she was fine, turns out the leaves aren't much of a problem if only a little is eaten) but I was so upset I ended up getting rid of them.

I wanted to grow Morning Glory so I could photograph Flutter Morning Glory with them, plus they are so pretty.

Love pkw xxx

[Taffeta]

Funny you say that. I had both blue and white ones grown from seed, but while the white ones flourished, the blue ones...didn't? THere were one or two that survived - I think maybe just one plant, actually - but the others all died off and never flowered. They were sharing space with the thunbergia, but like I said, the white variant was fine. I can't remember what the type was, but it had purple tints on the petals.

Definitely a no-no if there's a risk to the pet, though.

[Artemesia's Garden]

Funny you say that. I had both blue and white ones grown from seed, but while the white ones flourished, the blue ones...didn't? THere were one or two that survived - I think maybe just one plant, actually - but the others all died off and never flowered. They were sharing space with the thunbergia, but like I said, the white variant was fine. I can't remember what the type was, but it had purple tints on the petals.

Definitely a no-no if there's a risk to the pet, though.

I also tried growing them years ago when I was very into blue flowers. The same thing happened to me, but in this case there were pink and white ones but no blue. Unfortunately I think it's one of those situations where the flower seed industry is telling you a bit of a fib. I'm not sure what the reason is, maybe they need acid soil to go blue like hydrangeas. Seed companies know that domestic customers tend to blame themselves if their seeds don't perform well 

[Ponyfan]

Thanks for all of the tips on the mints.  


At my old house, we had a morning glory bed off the front porch.  For years we didn't have to buy seeds.  My mom would pull the spent vines off of the climbing fence, open the seed pods and pour them in to the flowerbed.  We haven't tried growing them since we moved.  I'm pretty sure we bought morning glory and moonflower seeds but they're probably too old now to grow.


Ponyfan