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

[Anasa Tristis]

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

The best approach is to kill them off when they’re in their grub stage in the lawn. (Spring and fall.) Get “Milky Spore” or the right species of beneficial nematodes and apply as directed. Not cheap, (or one and done) but effective.

Now that they’re mature and out and about fill a bucket with some water, add a squirt of dish detergent to kill the surface tension and go around knocking them into the water to drown. (If you’re not squeamish get gloves and squish em too.) Dig a shallow hole and dump your dead in there and bury em. Like some other beetles they give off pheromones that attract more. Drowning and squishing will help protect your plants from serious damage now and will reduce future generations next season.

 

[a hapless toad]

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?

Okay, the Endless Summer/bigleaf hydrangeas need sunlight to bloom. They don't want to be in full sun if you live in a warmer climate, but they DO need sun. They should be moved to a place with more dappled sunlight or full sun in the morning that gets shady in the heat of the afternoon. They need to be fertilized too, something with far more phosphorus (the P in N-P-K) than nitrogen and potassium. They generally don't need actual pruning, but if you live in a freezy place and want to get rid of ugly dead wood, you do that in spring when you see green growth and buds on the plant and you ONLY cut off the dead brown wood. You can also deadhead flowers as you go during the summer. But do not ever prune them in fall because you'll be cutting off some of next year's blossoms (they bloom on old AND new wood). If you want them to turn blue then you need to get a soil acidifier; any garden shop or Home Depot type store will have it.

As for the smooth hydrangea, they also might be lacking in sunshine, but I would guess that they're leggy and weak because they need to be pruned. Like panicle hydrangea, you can prune them back really heavily and they'll be all the better for it. They bloom on new wood as well, so in early spring, say March in most temperate climates, you can cut them down to 1/3 of their initial size. The shrub will be stronger and you will still get flowers, just maybe a week or two later than you're used to. Pruning also helps them withstand heat better. Also smooth hydrangea are really fast growing and spreaders but they don't have super high fertilizer needs.

As for the last ones, it's hard to say. If they're bigleaf they might need fertilizer and/or afternoon shade. If they're smooth hydrangea then they probably need a pruning and/or afternoon shade.

Also you can transplant any of them in late fall or winter, depending on your conditions. You want to transplant them after they go dormant but obviously not when the ground is frozen (if your ground freezes at all).

Finally, all hydrangea are thirsty gorls and they like moist conditions but they HATE WET FEET so make sure their soil is well drained and not soggy.

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

hydrangea

THANK YOU SO MUCH. That was very helpful.

 

[Blue Gem Kosher Queen]

Gather around green handed kiwis, I got a tale for ya.
About three months ago my sister (who has sacrificed all the time she could spend with her family in the gym) presented this neat little thing called spirulina to my mum and grandma. You guys probably already know spirulina as tablets or powder you can buy at any well stocked market and supplements store, well, my sis was lamenting that she couldn't get the real deal as she was showing us TikToks of spirulina farms.

'This couldn't happen here' she said with resigning certainty.

So I took it upon myself to get spirulina starting culture and all the necessary things with what remained of my severance. No, I didn't do it for her but instead because if she wants something it generally means she is just copying a demand she saw at her gym, like trying to sell GymShark. As I already mentioned I was unemployed and wanted a way to make some money even if it meant waiting. I'm going to share my findings with you so you don't go through half the malding I did.

I got my starting culture, sea salts and growing medium from the Phydrotec store on Etsy. They are based in the Netherlands but all business is in English. I picked them because my other Etsy option was Sweden's HealthAlgae and the only reason I didn't go with them was that the Dutch gave me a better price. I gave a bunch of questions to the owner (wanting to make the most out of my investment) and he answered every single one with valuable tips.

Before we move on, since I don't think anyone in this thread has written about algae farming, I will explain.
Starting culture are dormant algae cells that you place in a viable enviorment and start a colony.
Sea salts are self-explanatory.
Growing medium is a concetration of minerals the algae uses to grow. The standard is called Zarrouk's medium.

Spirulina is an extremophile (yeah, like tardigrades). If you want to be technical all you need after you get the culture is a recipient, light and carbon dioxide, hell you can just give it sodium bicarbonate as long as is food grade. However, if you want the shit hippies and gymrats want it needs the extra push of sea salts and growing medium.

I had to wait for almost a whole month for my order to even sniff the border and customs took a whole week after it had arrived in my country to deliver it to me. By the time I got my package, the spirulina bottle looked like swamp water rather than the deep blue green I saw on the store. You are supposed to leave the culture in relative dark for 24 hours before light exposure due to such a drastic change of enviornment. Mom didn't raise no bitch and my algae wasn't defeated.

So I emptied a little over half the bottle in a Kilner jar I bought (and cleaned with a virgin sponge, no soap, only hot water) and the other half was left in the plastic bottle. Drinkable water, I was so paranoid I even used drinkable water to clean the jar. Glass is better than plastic for obvious reasons and cylinders are the best way to maximize light.

So I sat and waited, losing my sanity over seeing that jar do nothing, coping and telling myself that I saw a little green. I was desperate and used what was left of my severance to buy an air pump, which objectivally was over kill at this stage of the project. By the second week, the culture in the bottle looked like it was about to die, so I poured a bit of sea salt and medium there. Before we reach the month, the bottle is actually turning green, unlike the jar.

Why green matters here? Spirulina is cyanobacteria and the way to tell you have a prosperous colony is if the water is tinted of a deep, rich blue green. Have you walked by a fountain and noticed the water looks greenish, that's how the bottle looked in the bottle. I'm basically praying for an algal bloom.

The growing medium but also the sodium bicarbonate increase the pH level of the water, the growing medium specifically does to 8.2 rendering the water in the bottle as basic as sea water. I know this because I measured the pH with spa pH strips since I couldn't afford the pH meter I wanted. In mundane terms, almost completely inhospitable to any other thing in such a concentration, a 200ml bottle that wasn't even at half capacity. Once I have funds again I will buy a microscope to ensure that the colony isn't contaminated and that the spirulina itself is healthy.

This made me realise my true mistake. The reason the jar colony wasn't prospering was that carbon dioxide was escaping and it was escaping because of my micro-managing in not deciding if I should leave the air pump or not. By the time I realised this the jar wasn't airtight because the cap was eroded by salt and I had to move my original colony to the jar originally set for the bottle culture.

Despite my mistakes, the bottle colony has prospered and achieved the desired Atreides green two weeks ahead of the first month anniversary of the experiment (June 21st) and once we reach the two month threshold, the colonisation begins again in a new jar, with one half remaining for the final cycle. The jar colony has achived the fountain green two days ago and looks to be in good shape to meet the colour grade for the anniversary.

 

[SlaanyChaser]

I've gotten really into carnivorous plants lately.
I have at least one of each kind except helios since they look like sarracenia.

 

[Emo Supremo]

i just found mushrooms growing at the base of one of my butterfly bushes. i don't think that's an auspicious sign of good health. since asking reddit was a waste of time i'm going to ask a different gaggle of spergs instead: what should i do with six butterfly bushes that are all chronically infected with something that's been causing their leaves to yellow, then brown, then fall off? are they beyond hope? do i need to amend and/or treat the soil so it doesn't just infect whatever i might replace the bushes with?

 

[BongoMongo]

Can anyone offer any advice please? I currently have no plants in my home, and have always had minimal success keeping anything alive. Would anyone have any reccomendations for retard proof plants, which will be happy enough if I fuck off away for a couple of nights and not need watered or cared for in the interim? Open to anything really, but I would like some leafy friends to cheer my home up a little bit.

 

[(The REAL) Jack Torrance]

Can anyone offer any advice please? I currently have no plants in my home, and have always had minimal success keeping anything alive. Would anyone have any reccomendations for retard proof plants, which will be happy enough if I fuck off away for a couple of nights and not need watered or cared for in the interim? Open to anything really, but I would like some leafy friends to cheer my home up a little bit.

Pothos, vining philodendron, snake plant, money tree, spider plant, Chinese evergreen, rubber tree, or monstera deliciosa. In my experience, these are all pretty retard and neglect-proof (+ common).

Depending on the size of the pot these should not need to be watered more than once every 2 weeks, potentially even less. Smaller the pot = more often you’ll have to water. Terracotta pots dry out faster than plastic. Also depends on soil- chunkier soil mixes tend to be more water retaining without causing root rot.

Main mistake beginners make is watering too often, wait until the top inch or two of soil is dry.

 

[BongoMongo]

Pothos, vining philodendron, snake plant, money tree, spider plant, Chinese evergreen, rubber tree, or monstera deliciosa. In my experience, these are all pretty retard and neglect-proof (+ common).

Depending on the size of the pot these should not need to be watered more than once every 2 weeks, potentially even less. Smaller the pot = more often you’ll have to water. Terracotta pots dry out faster than plastic. Also depends on soil- chunkier soil mixes tend to be more water retaining without causing root rot.

Main mistake beginners make is watering too often, wait until the top inch or two of soil is dry.

Thank you very much indeed, frendo! Shall look into all of the above.

 

[bliblblblbbllb]

Can anyone offer any advice please? I currently have no plants in my home, and have always had minimal success keeping anything alive. Would anyone have any reccomendations for retard proof plants, which will be happy enough if I fuck off away for a couple of nights and not need watered or cared for in the interim? Open to anything really, but I would like some leafy friends to cheer my home up a little bit.

Get yourself a pothos. Everyone should get a pothos. They come in all sorts of colors nowadays and they are cheap, bombproof plants. They grow at incredible speed and are very responsive. If it's too dry, it wilts noticably, and it'll perk right back up within a few hours of watering so you can tell it's happy. And you can basically just cut leaves off and stick them in water and they'll grow more pothos. You can let a pothos grow big enough to cover an entire wall within a couple months, or you can easily keep just one vine in a cute slender vase. It's the OP houseplant.

As previously said, most people overestimate how often plants need watered. If you have the right soil mix and fully, deeply water, most houseplants should be good for up to 10-14 days. I have a bigger houseplant that only needs water every other week or so. Some succulents only need watered, like, once a month or two. Even "thirsty" plants only need watered like... every 5-7 days if you're doing it right and don't live in a 90 degree desert house.

The beginner friendly combo IMO is to get a bucket or an overpot (a pot with no holes in the bottom and sightly larger than the plant's actual pot, and then you have the actual plant in a container with holes in the bottom. You fill the bigger pot with water. You put the plant in it for about 20 minutes depending on container size and the soil, sitting partly immersed in water. When the top of the soil feels like a damp sponge, you're good. Dump out any excess water. The result: a perfectly watered plant that absorbed the correct amount of water. No overwatering leading to yellowed leaves and rot. No underwatering leading to weird hydrophobic soil and crispy dead plant. This method is called bottom watering (teehee).

Bottom watering isn't magic but I find it's a lot more foolproof. I find most "Everything I have dies" people are like... dumping a cup of water onto hydrophobic soil every single day.

---

I've been going to the local farmer's market, which like many places is getting increasingly overwhelmed by scams and MLMs rather than, I dunno, farmers. There was a couple who was mostly selling eggs and meat but also had some houseplants for sale. They looked HORRIBLE. The most etoliated succulents you can imagine. Another place was selling only pots and plants. It was almost all neon and bicolor pothos- labeled as a "rare houseplant" that also looked rather unhappy... for 25 dollars! The day before, I was at a big box store that was selling neon pothos in giant hanging baskets, 3x as many vines, for the same price.

It kinda drove me dizzy with the idea of mass propagating some houseplants for sale, because I think I could do a better job. But reality is more complicated- sure, they were selling shit houseplants for high prices... but that doesn't mean people were buying them.

I also want to try making silk plants sometime. I know people associate silk plants with cheap dusty offices and bathrooms, but I recently saw some handcrafted, handpainted faux orchids in my local art gallery. It was sold for 400 dollars. They were beautiful and I'm sure many different people would be happy to have it their house, because those mofos looked as alive as can be, and when you got close enough to tell they weren't real, you were impressed by the obvious craftsmanship.

 

[Jerome Saunders]

Can anyone offer any advice please? I currently have no plants in my home, and have always had minimal success keeping anything alive. Would anyone have any reccomendations for retard proof plants, which will be happy enough if I fuck off away for a couple of nights and not need watered or cared for in the interim? Open to anything really, but I would like some leafy friends to cheer my home up a little bit.

I wanna throw my leaf in the ring for the ZZ plant. These things can take abject neglect. I've only had one, it's about 8 years old now, and has lived in 2 states with very different climates. I think it's been about 2-3 months since I've watered it as they're very drought tolerant.

 

[suspended animation]

i just found mushrooms growing at the base of one of my butterfly bushes. i don't think that's an auspicious sign of good health. since asking reddit was a waste of time i'm going to ask a different gaggle of spergs instead: what should i do with six butterfly bushes that are all chronically infected with something that's been causing their leaves to yellow, then brown, then fall off? are they beyond hope? do i need to amend and/or treat the soil so it doesn't just infect whatever i might replace the bushes with?

It looks like the soil may be too wet and the butterfly bushes may be rotting due to that. If it's just rot, I don't think you need to treat the soil. I've been most successful with growing butterfly bush in a pot with well-draining soil (I added extra perlite to a potting mix). It does require more frequent watering, but it also keeps it from rotting during the rainy season.

 

[one_time_user]

friends- HALP me!

I planted a 800 square foot section of my yard as wildflowers. got out (mostly, it's an ongoing battle) the over my head height pricker vines, tarped the ground over the winter, rototilled and beneficial nemotoded the soil. planted 50 thousand wildflower seeds in about 40 varieties. all good! I got in there as the seeds were germinating and took care of the devil vines every time they sprouted more (I have a few to do still) and stuff did what it's supposed to, it germinated!

I, of course, am a dummy. I didn't realize that you need to weed wildflower fields (I mean, wildflower fields in the wild don't get weeded but, whatever) and now I have about 50 percent (or a bit more) wildflowers growing and about 50 percent (or a bit less) grass and stuff that when it was growing I didn't know wasn't stuff I planted.

Because it's now mid July I am going to have to consider this year a wash I guess. Seeds germinated, hopefully they come back next year but I think some of it got strangled/overshadowed by the grass and whatever (because I suck and am dumb). 800 square feet of jungle at this point is probably too much for me to start figuring out what is grass, what is some random shit that took root and what is wildflower. It's rained torrentially here off and on for the past few weeks/month and the mosquitos are frankly superior to me at this point.

So, next year is there a lazy way to prevent grass (at the very least the grass) from growing in my wildflower area? When stuff is coming up, I have no clue what is what, what is grass, or wildflower or some random shit. I can't tell until it's big enough to be a pain in the ass.

Is all hope lost?

 

[NoReturn]

friends- HALP me!

I planted a 800 square foot section of my yard as wildflowers. got out (mostly, it's an ongoing battle) the over my head height pricker vines, tarped the ground over the winter, rototilled and beneficial nemotoded the soil. planted 50 thousand wildflower seeds in about 40 varieties. all good! I got in there as the seeds were germinating and took care of the devil vines every time they sprouted more (I have a few to do still) and stuff did what it's supposed to, it germinated!

I, of course, am a dummy. I didn't realize that you need to weed wildflower fields (I mean, wildflower fields in the wild don't get weeded but, whatever) and now I have about 50 percent (or a bit more) wildflowers growing and about 50 percent (or a bit less) grass and stuff that when it was growing I didn't know wasn't stuff I planted.

Because it's now mid July I am going to have to consider this year a wash I guess. Seeds germinated, hopefully they come back next year but I think some of it got strangled/overshadowed by the grass and whatever (because I suck and am dumb). 800 square feet of jungle at this point is probably too much for me to start figuring out what is grass, what is some random shit that took root and what is wildflower. It's rained torrentially here off and on for the past few weeks/month and the mosquitos are frankly superior to me at this point.

So, next year is there a lazy way to prevent grass (at the very least the grass) from growing in my wildflower area? When stuff is coming up, I have no clue what is what, what is grass, or wildflower or some random shit. I can't tell until it's big enough to be a pain in the ass.

Is all hope lost?

Are the wildflowers native to your area? Any chance you can borrow an herbivore?
Any chance you can borrow some mulch/detritus from your nearby wild areas?

 

[one_time_user]

@NoReturn, some of the wildflowers are native but unfortunately I really focused on pretty and convinced myself that zones are more important than native because of (lol) things shifting due to climate change (I really just love poppies). Wouldn't mulch prevent the flowers too?

I googled and apparently there is weed killer that only kills grass. I may try that on a smaller portion to see if I see a bunch of dead pollinators in that area along with whatever it does to the grass and flowers
I am just mad at myself for not thinking forward, I put in SO MUCH work and have kind of fucked it all up at the finish line.

 

[NoReturn]

@NoReturn, some of the wildflowers are native but unfortunately I really focused on pretty and convinced myself that zones are more important than native because of (lol) things shifting due to climate change (I really just love poppies). Wouldn't mulch prevent the flowers too?

I googled and apparently there is weed killer that only kills grass. I may try that on a smaller portion to see if I see a bunch of dead pollinators in that area along with whatever it does to the grass and flowers
I am just mad at myself for not thinking forward, I put in SO MUCH work and have kind of fucked it all up at the finish line.

I was thinking mulch less as something to starve out the plants than as a form of territorial warfare; introduce more local things to crowd out and starve the grass.

 

[Emo Supremo]

Are the wildflowers native to your area? Any chance you can borrow an herbivore?
Any chance you can borrow some mulch/detritus from your nearby wild areas?

she's welcome to borrow the two hungryass does that've been patrolling our neighbourhood. one of them just gave birth so she'll need all the num nums she can get (it's much harder to be angry at a deer when she has an adorable little baby in tow by the way).

It looks like the soil may be too wet and the butterfly bushes may be rotting due to that. If it's just rot, I don't think you need to treat the soil. I've been most successful with growing butterfly bush in a pot with well-draining soil (I added extra perlite to a potting mix). It does require more frequent watering, but it also keeps it from rotting during the rainy season.

unfortunately they're all at least three feet tall which makes transplanting into pots more difficult and costly, but i would like to move at least some of them into my backyard because it gets over ten hours of sun, which presumably lowers the chance of root rot. do you think it's feasible or would the stress end up doing them in?

 

[suspended animation]

would the stress end up doing them in?

If the leaves are all yellowing, it sounds like they may be too stressed for transplanting...but I would take that chance anyway since they're already possibly dying.

If they're in total shade right now, you will have to pot them up first for movability because placing them in direct sun right away will fry them. Transition them to increasing sun exposure over a week or two.

I'd also take cuttings. I just read
"Timing is key: Late spring for softwood, late autumn for hardwood cuttings."
And also
"Take a cutting of around 10-15cm in length. Take a cutting from the top of the plant, preferably a shoot that doesn’t have a flower at the end." More here

(Cuttings from unhealthy plants aren't ideal, but I've still had about a 50% success rate taking cuttings from dying plants. It's worth a try.)

I'm a lazy gardener so I would personally opt for taking lots of cuttings and transplanting one or two of the healthiest looking momma plants instead of all. (The potting soil required for potting all 6 mommas up gets ridiculously expensive, too.)

Good luck!

 

[glioblastoma multiforme]

Can anyone name any of the flowering plants in this picture?



I went the other day and have serious garden envy.

On the up side, my dahlia pot at the back has bloomed brilliantly, its looking great. Here's a flower in the process of opening:



One of the plants in the front is going to bloom very shortly, and another is finally growing some buds.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

Is all hope lost?

No, but ya might need a new game plan for the area.

You didn't say what's in there. I'm going to guess that it was a mix of annuals and perennials. I'd advise taking pictures so you know where the perennials are. And/or sticking some sort of weatherproof markers in next to them before winter so you can ID them when they come back in the spring. The self seeding annuals may be a lost cause if the weeds and grass are more dominant. (And/or perennials themselves.) I would save seed from what survives this year and plant them in areas I cleared out in the late fall. And I'd mark the areas in some way so I'd know where they are. Weeding and mulching in between those annual spots and the perennials would go a long way in controlling the chaos. But yes, doing that will not give you a picture perfect wildflower meadow garden. Sorry.

As already mentioned, if you want it to be more maintenance free your best bet is to introduce aggressive native perennials that'll come back every year, get bigger when they do, and crowd out the undesirables. I have long and wide beds of mass plantings of bee balm, echinacea, different kinds of goldenrod, mountain mint, and some sort of native sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides maybe?). There's columbine, yarrow and irises in there too. False indigo and sennas. With that mix there are different bloom times from spring to frost. Some weedy grass manages to grow in between them but not a lot. I get random plants in there from wind borne and bird pooped seed too, (mostly invasives) but in general I have a pretty tidy looking patchwork of thickly growing perennials that the bugs and birds groove on. And looks pretty in its own way. But sadly it is not a "wildflower meadow garden" by any stretch of the imagination. It's a native perennial bed. Eventually the different plants do battle with each other for dominance, (my bee balm is winning this year oddly enough- must have been all that spring rain) but ripping out large chunks of the same plant is easier than dealing with individual clumps of grass or other undesirables here and there in between delicate annuals and the occassional perennial.

A word o'caution though: that perennial mass planting approach is not necessarily easy. In the fall I have to scythe everything down to nubs and haul the dead stems and whatnot away to the compost pile. And I mulch the beds with woodchips then too, so that only the tough perennials get through in the spring and the weeds seeds that got in there all that summer get smothered and don't germinate.

I dunno if that helps but... that's what I got. Unfortunately only Nature can make those pretty wildflower meadow gardens and they're never the same from year to year.