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

[Layton Mysteries]

I got this cute succulent garden in a small ~3" heart pot, but I'm worried the plants may outgrow the pot. I haven't grown many succulents before, so I'm not sure what to do as they are getting bigger and taller. They seem healthy to me at least, and love chasing the sun to the point I have to rotate the pot to prevent them from leaning. Will I need to cut the tops off or re-pot them in the future?

Also does anyone here have advice on taking care of a small desert rose? Mine keeps dropping leaves even after repotting it with better soil. It is inside near a window so it gets plenty of light. It was looking better until recently when it just dropped around half its remaining leaves overnight.

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First of all I want to apologize for not having a picture of the entire plant at the moment, but I’ve come here in search of advice on how to keep my accidental pumpkin plant alive.

I actually planted zinnias and sunflowers in this spot but evidently some hidden pumpkin seeds in the soil took off instead lol My concern is not only keeping it alive long enough to see if it will bare fruit, but also to keep it in check so it doesn’t end up overtaking my small yard. Are you able to cut some of the vines back so it doesn’t get out of control? Or would this harm the plant as a whole?

I’m excited at the prospect of having my own little pumpkin patch but admit I have a black thumb and really don’t want to fuck this up by intervening when it’s not necessary.


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With only one plant you may want to hand pollinate to get many pumpkins. The flowers are sexually dimorphic so make sure you get the pollen from a male flower.

 

[suspended animation]

advice on taking care of a small desert rose

My desert roses are outdoors so I'm not sure how well they do with indoor lighting, but I've found them to be very resilient plants. They'll survive getting repeatedly unpotted by animals or weather, they survive getting devoured by caterpillars, they can survive weeks of daily rain, they can survive being severely trimmed back...

Mine all lose their leaves once or twice a year but they grow back within a couple months.

The only ones I've lost were because their roots had blocked the drainage holes and had been soaking in water so long that they rotted.

That's an adorable heart planter and those succulents look really healthy, I wouldn't worry about repotting until they start growing too close together.

 

[Emo Supremo]

I think the gardening and plant thread in general discussion would work better than this thread, as many houseplants aren't edible.

I second this. Sometimes people talk here about their outdoor gardens but the focus tends to be on decorative houseplants. I think the other thread would be a better option.

ah. so you're saying i didn't have to shit up the thread with my outdoor garden angst. whoops.

to keep things actually relevant to the topic, i repotted my big beefy jade plant and its shiny ass leaves the other day and so far it's taking to it pretty well. looks quite handsome in the new planter, too. technically i didn't have to do all that because handled the old one just fine and it wasn't too rootbound when i took it out, but i had it for so long i figured it wouldn't hurt either.

 

[glioblastoma multiforme]

ah. so you're saying i didn't have to shit up the thread with my outdoor garden angst. whoops.

I've been posting both indoor and outdoor garden angst.

The title says both so its fine imo.

I'm still super angsty about my dahlias, the one I left in the pot at the back, the stalks are like a metre tall now and there are loads of buds. The ones at the front, only one is even half that height and it has a single bud. I think its a combination of soil at the front being really bad (vs fresh compost in the pot) and the initial damage done by slugs and snails when they were trying to get going.

At the front I've put out coffee grounds, plant food, and a tiny bit of growmore (not all at once). I've got several bags of leaf mulch that should be ready by autumn so hopefully that will help it for next year but I still don't understand how the ones in the ground are doing so much worse.

 

[NoReturn]

I got this cute succulent garden in a small ~3" heart pot, but I'm worried the plants may outgrow the pot. I haven't grown many succulents before, so I'm not sure what to do as they are getting bigger and taller. They seem healthy to me at least, and love chasing the sun to the point I have to rotate the pot to prevent them from leaning. Will I need to cut the tops off or re-pot them in the future?

You've got two options:
1. Repot them as they get bigger
2. Decapitate and propagate from the top

 

[Kiwisee]

Has anyone had any luck with getting their hydrangeas to bloom a year or two after planting them?

I have a two year old one that is growing slowly, while the one planted last year is producing twice the number of leaves.

They're both planted about two feet away from my large oak tree, so that they can have dappled sunlight

 

[one_time_user]

Has anyone had any luck with getting their hydrangeas to bloom a year or two after planting them?

I have a two year old one that is growing slowly, while the one planted last year is producing twice the number of leaves.

They're both planted about two feet away from my large oak tree, so that they can have dappled sunlight

Don't hate me! I dragged a small hydrangea with me when I moved (3 gallon sized) and this year also bought three 3 gallon hydrangeas and planted all 4 in mostly full sun. they're all blooming. The 3 I ordered this year have only been in the ground a month or two.

I assumed nothing was going to happen with them this year and did nothing special except water them every day deeply after I planted them for a week or two.

 

[a hapless toad]

Has anyone had any luck with getting their hydrangeas to bloom a year or two after planting them?

I have a two year old one that is growing slowly, while the one planted last year is producing twice the number of leaves.

They're both planted about two feet away from my large oak tree, so that they can have dappled sunlight

What kind of hydrangea are they and are you pruning them? Some hydrangea can only produce blooms on second year growth, so if you're pruning them you're cutting off their poor planty noses to spite their faces.

 

[Emo Supremo]

What kind of hydrangea are they and are you pruning them? Some hydrangea can only produce blooms on second year growth, so if you're pruning them you're cutting off their poor planty noses to spite their faces.

what do you have to say on berry white hydrangeas, provided the deer don't suddenly decide they're delicious snacks when i let my guard down?

 

[LabourRace]

ah. so you're saying i didn't have to shit up the thread with my outdoor garden angst. whoops

No, I like that, I just like the sperging about flowers and houseplants in addition to gardens for food.

Anyone else keep poinsettias year round? I had a white one I accidentally killed off from a lack of water. Oops. At least my regular one has been going strong for about a year and a half now, but some of its leaves are warping a bit, but otherwise seems fine.

 

[Botched Tit Job]

Anyone have any good resources on carnivorous plants?

I live in the northern half of the US, somewhere between Maine and Washington state. I've tried to have so many different carnivorous plants over the last decade but literally all of them die within 6 months. They die inside, outside, in direct light, not in direct light, sitting in water, only watered from the top, using all sorts of specialty soil (including what california carnivores sells on their website), I'm out of ideas. Anyone got any leads on advice that actually works?

 

[a hapless toad]

what do you have to say on berry white hydrangeas, provided the deer don't suddenly decide they're delicious snacks when i let my guard down?

Panicle hydrangeas bloom on new growth. You don't have to prune them, but if you want to for general cleanup and to get bigger blossoms, do it in late winter/early spring (depending on climate) before it starts to produce new leaves and shoots. It's like pruning roses, you can take them back pretty severely and they'll love you for it. Also like roses you prune them back to a bud with a heading cut, but you don't have to worry as much about shaping when considering the direction of the bud.

(I don't even like roses, but due to years of being a dutiful child/grandchild, I know WAY too much about pruning them.)

Also I feel you on the deer. I find they even eat plants labeled "deer resistant" despite having plenty of other non-deer resistant noms freely available.

I live in the northern half of the US, somewhere between Maine and Washington state. I've tried to have so many different carnivorous plants over the last decade but literally all of them die within 6 months. They die inside, outside, in direct light, not in direct light, sitting in water, only watered from the top, using all sorts of specialty soil (including what california carnivores sells on their website), I'm out of ideas. Anyone got any leads on advice that actually works?

Move. Or build a greenhouse.

 

[Kiwisee]

What kind of hydrangea are they and are you pruning them? Some hydrangea can only produce blooms on second year growth, so if you're pruning them you're cutting off their poor planty noses to spite their faces.

I cut off their spent flowers last year.

And they’re oakleaf variety

 

[TheRaptorJesus]

Japanese beetles are crazy this year and I don't want to spray and kill bees. Damn japs!

 

[a hapless toad]

I cut off their spent flowers last year.

And they’re oakleaf variety

Oakleaf bloom on last year's growth, so that might be the issue. When did you deadhead them?

They also might need fertilizer. Hydrangea are pretty heavy feeders.

 

[unexpected onions]

Can anyone here identify these? We stuck a bunch of random fruit seeds in dirt months ago to see if anything grows and got these.





Could be pretty much anything you can find in grocery store fruit sections. We planted everything and marked nothing.

 

[NoReturn]

Anyone have any good resources on carnivorous plants?

I live in the northern half of the US, somewhere between Maine and Washington state. I've tried to have so many different carnivorous plants over the last decade but literally all of them die within 6 months. They die inside, outside, in direct light, not in direct light, sitting in water, only watered from the top, using all sorts of specialty soil (including what california carnivores sells on their website), I'm out of ideas. Anyone got any leads on advice that actually works?

Got a window? Pinguicula!
No window? Growlight and pinguicula!

Old jar and some dirt? Pinguicula!
Fruit flies? Pinguicula!

Pinguicula!

Can anyone here identify these? We stuck a bunch of random fruit seeds in dirt months ago to see if anything grows and got these.

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Could be pretty much anything you can find in grocery store fruit sections. We planted everything and marked nothing.

My guesses:

• Lime
• Lemon? Some kind of pepper?
• Too soon to tell. Some kind of bean?

 

[Emo Supremo]

My guesses:

• Lime
• Lemon? Some kind of pepper?
• Too soon to tell. Some kind of bean?

it'd be easier to decode the sphinx's riddle than to identify a plant based off of the sprout. one of my lantana pots has like half a dozen sprouts starting to come in and right now i don't know if it's the original plant just stretching out its legs or something entirely different hitching a free ride.

Japanese beetles are crazy this year and I don't want to spray and kill bees. Damn japs!

they're amazingly shitty fliers and their defense strategy is flopping off the leaf when disturbed, so you can easily just drown them by knocking any beetles you find into a pitcher of water mixed with dish soap.

 

[Lichen Bark]

Anyone have any good resources on carnivorous plants?

I kept a venus flytrap alive inside for years doing the method below. It even flowered a couple times. If you don't have adequate humidity they just slowly die. They are swampy plants, so this makes sense.

Put it in a small aquarium (10 gallon tanks are dirt cheap) with some kind of lid to keep in the humidity (about 70% relative, gauges are cheap.) (saran wrap can work in a pinch), keep moist with distilled water (I kept a clear dish underneath to see the water level, and always made sure I could see some), and have a little 13 watt compact fluorescent shine through the top of the tank from like an old desk lamp. After it looks like it's growing you can feed it, but don't overfeed it. An ant here in there fed with tweezers is usually enough. It will eventually start to develop nice red traps from the light. I never repotted mine, but the little sphagnum moss cup it came in started to actually grow natural moss, it kept for years and years, until I forgot about him. and he dried right out, sad really.....I may just have to get another. Made for a good conversation piece.

The light resting on the tank lid will also increase the temperature in the tank to more favorable levels I think.....I really need another venus flytrap....

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

What kind of hydrangea are they and are you pruning them? Some hydrangea can only produce blooms on second year growth, so if you're pruning them you're cutting off their poor planty noses to spite their faces.

(12-18 years ago I was in the garden everyday and planted and maintained hundreds of perennials and shrubs, and some trees. I have neglected things for a several years but am looking to get back to it all, which means taking care of what has survived, and stage 2, planning and planting new. I have a lot of space to manage, lots of hungry critters, and natural vegetation that is constantly behaving like a jungle, so it's often a battle. But I miss my dirty, muddy days and want to rehab/replace, so I come seeking advice.)

I have a couple different varieties of hydrangea. There a set of 4 (mostly shade) that haven't produced blooms in a decade. I've tried pruning and not pruning, different ways to prune...nothing. They're your basic Endless Summer iirc, so I might have just been stupid about where I put them. This year - when a lot of things are blooming better - I finally see a couple (literally 2) of blooms...but they are only on some offshoot, not any of the main plants. The blooms are also pink, rather than blue, though I know there's some additive (nitrogen?) I could add if wanting blue. Idfk. But I don't understand the perennial (heh) lack of blooms. Maybe they should be moved?

I have another set of smooth-leaved hydrangea (white, mostly shady, but some sun) that have proliferated (they're actually crowding out some ferns; can I dig some up and plant elsewhere? When is best?). They're blooming pretty well this year, but the stalks are pretty rangy and weak/floppy. Diagnosis?

I also have some hydrangea that are either white or maybe another Endless summer or some kind of smooth think white that are in an area that gets a ton of sun. They don't bloom, either. Halp?

I second this. Sometimes people talk here about their outdoor gardens but the focus tends to be on decorative houseplants. I think the other thread would be a better option.

I looked at the other thread and it seemed more veg, and since I see a bunch of hydrangea talk here I picked here but tell me if I should repost my hydrangea frustrations elsewhere.