Your houseplants and gardens - Yellow leaf means underwatered AND overwatered?! What a country!

[one_time_user]

the vines are so thorned I don't remember if they're fuzzy too but I don't think so? I do have fences and trees (150 ft x 100?) and it's hella sunny. the goddamed long chopped off branches are flowering, white flowers. I haven't smelt them as I am not convinced they're not zombies, that flowering on dead vines shit ain't normal.

I have ocd and rage issues so I take it out on those fuckers. one of us is going to be fully dead.

*whisper cries* : it's winning /wc

 

[Swagstika]

Look, look!
My Spefania that has remained dormant for 2 1/2 month (and actually even regressed because I accidentally broke a leaf off) suddenly started growing!

 

[Näkki]

would you be interested in perhaps eating the japanese knotweed, provided it isn't exposed to runoff and doesn't get sprayed with pesticides? from what i've read it's like a crunchy vegetable with loads of vitamins that you can freely harvest the shit out of. ever since i heard it's a good forage food i've been curious to try it, but there aren't any stands of it in my neighbourhood and it'd be cool if another kiwi could personally back up its edibility. meanwhile i'm stuck with. like. mimosa trees and japanese stiltgrass, and you can't do much with those (except i do want to try making tea from mimosa bark since it's apparently high in tannins, which helps with wasp stings).

Totally missed your reply, I apologise.

Hah. Haha. My knotweed grows too fast to actually find any shoots, despite sitting on a recipe to ferment them. You turn around once and it's already a full grown plant again. I munch on young"ish" shoots when I find them though. You can poison this plant, rip out its roots, downright eat its young and yet.. (I should say, they're super bitter not anywhere close to say asparagus. Slightly sour but I have more fun chewing on our wild sorrel. They're just not that tasty..)

Hasn't registered among neighbours that it's an actual weed and not even their flowering period for bees makes them worth it. They're not nectar rich plants. Just need too much water. (I can't even be too mad because it was my father who planted them for art utensils.)


What we both might need is goats though.

 

[a hapless toad]

(I can't even be too mad because it was my father who planted them for art utensils.)

Please elaborate!

 

[Näkki]

Please elaborate!

As long as you won't curse my family tree anymore than it already is.

Dried knotweed is much softer than bamboo for example, can still handle a fair bit though while staying flexible. It's great for ink and can be used for many other paints as well. My dad planted it mostly for making ink brushes and pencils.

Came to regret it though as he realised he didn't need that many every damn year..

 

[56 others]

Need a recommendation for a medium sized houseplant for my dinner table. Wont get any sun, and not a lot of indoor light.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

Wont get any sun, and not a lot of indoor light.

A plastic one. Plants need light to survive.



Depending on your definition of "not a lot of indoor light", these are the typical answers for low light plants, in order of how much I would personally recommend them:
SNAKE PLANT



ZZ Plant



Cast Iron Plant



Peace Lily (highly poisonous to cats, not just "it'll throw up", it can kill your cat)


Pothos


None of these plants actively enjoy super low light, but they all might tolerate it.

 

[NoReturn]

A plastic one. Plants need light to survive.



Depending on your definition of "not a lot of indoor light", these are the typical answers for low light plants, in order of how much I would personally recommend them:
SNAKE PLANT
View attachment 6042336


ZZ Plant
View attachment 6042339


Cast Iron Plant
View attachment 6042343


Peace Lily (highly poisonous to cats, not just "it'll throw up", it can kill your cat)
View attachment 6042345

Pothos
View attachment 6042351

None of these plants actively enjoy super low light, but they all might tolerate it.

Also, they'll stretch out in search of light, so keep that in mind.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

Pothos

I just discovered that pothos is a no go for cats. It doesn’t poison them but can irritate mouths, throats and stomachs badly. Even though my cats aren’t nibblers one liked to sniff and lick it (!) so I whacked my long dangly pothos back to 8 inches (and out of kitty reach) until I can find a replacement.

It’s a bummer. It was growing really well with little light and even less care. But the last thing I need is a sick cat and a hefty vet bill.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

Alternatives to a plant to bring some nature into your space despite the lack of light might be something like a petrified wood carving/bowl, any form of pampas grass/dried plant bouquet (very boho), or something like this with a tray displaying baubles, dried plants, pinecones. Personally I would be deeply compelled to DIY or thrift all of these ideas but the amazon links are just for inspiration.


I have never been able to really keep plants in my kitchen because I like finicky tropical plants and my kitchen gets too cold and too inconsistent and too dry. And I have multiple pets that scooby-doo run all over the place and knock them over. I keep most of my plants in my bedroom and in my bathroom for reasons like the picture below LOL. I would never commit to a humidifier despite my dry eyes at night because "Why should I need so much fuss to sleep better?" but since I got tropical plants, well duh I need to condition the air for THEM.

 

[glioblastoma multiforme]

Sad plant times for me. I went away for one weekend and got back to a fully dead bush- box blight. Getting the bush down was a huge job and we still haven't got the roots out.

The dahlias that I left under mulch for the winter are being eaten by slugs as soon as they poke out of the ground. The ones I put in pots are doing great. I don't know whether to give up on the ones in the ground and just plant something else where they should be.

Garden just looks empty with the space from the bush and the dahlias barely showing their presence. I am surrounding them with salt and copper, and going out at night to physically remove slugs from them. I'll give it a couple more weeks, but thinking of how glorious it was last year and how barren it looks this year sucks.

On the plus side my friend gave me two indoor plants she didn't have room for, and two of my orchids have stalks with buds.

Hope you are all having more fortuitous gardening times than I.

 

[one_time_user]

I decided today that I am done with succulents. They're a pain in the ass. I am only keeping my frizzle sizzle and of course my coral cactus /Frankenstein plant.

 

[Swagstika]

Status report: Stefania is growing like crazy! I gave it a stick after I took the last picture, but it didn't want it. 4 days between this picture and the last... How tall can this thing grow??

 

[Lichen Bark]

Stefania is growing like crazy!

I think you're going to have to rename that one to Steven......

 

[Swagstika]

I think you're going to have to rename that one to Steven......

Steven it is!
(Also, I just learned there is a stephania erecta and I'm experiencing a mental dick joke overload right now)

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

Status report: Stefania is growing like crazy! I gave it a stick after I took the last picture, but it didn't want it. 4 days between this picture and the last... How tall can this thing grow??

View attachment 6049748

The leaf spacing is a little concerning there..... might need stronger light.

 

[Emo Supremo]

is potassium burn a thing. i think i accidentally gave my hardy hibiscus potassium burn a few weeks ago because i didn't do my research before using a fertilizer that had a 3-5-1 ratio, which is what i normally feed to my other plants.

at any rate though, another point for native species superiority: their care needs are pretty ooga booga as long as you don't go full retard. today i transplanted some teeny tiny blue mist flower sprouts i got at the farmers market into bigger pots with the hopes they'll take and get big enough for my future flower garden that i'm also going to plant bee balm in so i can see which species wins the pollinator thunderdome.

 

[سلیمان عثمان]

I decided today that I am done with succulents. They're a pain in the ass.

Sorry that I have missed the specific issue you are having with succulents in this thread. Is your primary problem that they will not stop dying or is it that they will not stop growing?

At this point my main issue with succulents is that my mother will not stop over-fertilizing the fuckers and every trip home degenerates in to a protracted refugee crisis negotiation in which she tries to flub off as many of the spiny fucks as she can every time I visit. My poor father has been driven from his beloved basement and the menace is rapidly encroaching on his shed.

 

[one_time_user]

Sorry that I have missed the specific issue you are having with succulents in this thread. Is your primary problem that they will not stop dying or is it that they will not stop growing?

At this point my main issue with succulents is that my mother will not stop over-fertilizing the fuckers and every trip home degenerates in to a protracted refugee crisis negotiation in which she tries to flub off as many of the spiny fucks as she can every time I visit. My poor father has been driven from his beloved basement and the menace is rapidly encroaching on his shed.
View attachment 6052095

During lockdown they were my entryway drug to plants. I bought all the succulents, many died, more survived. I got cocky and branched out to actual plants. Some died, many survived.

I moved last year and some more of each died but still had a ton. THEN I got fucking bugs, mealy bugs to be exact. I, mostly, got rid of them pretty easily on the regular plants once I figured out they were bugs (soil treatments, leaves cleaning, neem over alcohol) and am mostly down to random stray ones occasionally.

However, the succulents are so leave-y and can't be soaked and don't like being sprayed down that the bugs have just moved entirely to them. It's playing wack a mole. They kill one side of a suc, the other side grows wildly. The one next to it drops dead in a day. The 'joy' portion of my return on investment has diminished. They simultaneously look like a mini jungle and a dead zone. Like Vietnam jungle after the war.

 

[سلیمان عثمان]

That sound about right. Unless you manage to find the perfect little corner for the bastards and make sure they receive just the right amount of nutrition to maintain an impoverished subsistence living they go in to a violent explosion of expansion or keel over and die (or) they call upon the forces of Chaos to discover a mysterious method to simultaneously do both.

edit

* If the succulents got you in to gardening I would say they did their damned job.