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

[Lichen Bark]

Also, roundup isn't the devil.

I sometimes wish I could go back in time, where I wasn't aware of the things being sprayed outdoors.

and will break down in the soil

I've seen it show up in the towns water testing results. Monsanto said it was safe and effective, and it breaks down in the soil, but somehow it's in the local water supply, funny that.

Any better suggestions? I'd be happy to leave the drive as is tbh but the things that grow on there are incredibly invasive and if I don't keep a handle on them my beds will be overtaken.

I'm assuming it's a gravel driveway, alternatives won't be as cheap or effective as a systemic herbicide (because it kills the whole plant, root included). I use a homemade spray on areas I don't want anything to grow. It's really not something that you can do every couple of months though, and you're looking at more application's and probably more money. The trouble with weeds is that you need to kill the root somehow. When using food chemicals to do this basically means you need to pickle the plant, and this is the challenge.

(I use a scale to measure the dry stuff)
-Gallon of 7% vinegar (honestly if I had cheap source for 20% vinegar I would use that instead) into a 2 gallon pump sprayer
-14 ounces of anhydrous citric acid (citric acid powder to boost acidity) mixed in first
-14 ounces of salt
-few squirts of dish soap

You need to mix in the citric acid first, because the salt amount is just about the maximum limit the 7% vinegar will dissolve. You can spray this onto the plants on a hot day and they will shrivel pretty quickly. Although lately I've been trying to use it after a rain while the ground is slightly moist to see if that helps the salt and acid penetrate deeper and pickle the roots more effectively. You'll find it kills some things very easily and other thing's need more spray applied to the root area. I try to rinse out the sprayer after use, because it's pretty caustic. It also makes the soil fizz up like shaken soda. I find this gentle sound of effervescence soothing.

 

[Swagstika]

My monstera got a thrips infestation and I've been battling it the last three weeks. It seems I can't get rid of the fuckers but only keep them down, while my plant just looks sadder and sadder.
At first I was prepared to fight to the bitter end, but now I'm getting mentally ready to throw the entire thing out...
Should I start by mercy killing the saddest looking plant out of the cluster of four individual ones? Can I drown the thrips by leaving the whole plant with pot and all in the bathtub? Any poison recommendations?

 

[Lichen Bark]

My monstera got a thrips infestation and I've been battling it the last three weeks. It seems I can't get rid of the fuckers but only keep them down, while my plant just looks sadder and sadder.
At first I was prepared to fight to the bitter end, but now I'm getting mentally ready to throw the entire thing out...
Should I start by mercy killing the saddest looking plant out of the cluster of four individual ones? Can I drown the thrips by leaving the whole plant with pot and all in the bathtub? Any poison recommendations?

Before you throw in the towel try gassing them first. It always works. (see the quote below)

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/your-houseplants-and-gardens.117782/post-16317280

I have never met a bug that could survive a gassing, no really, gas them. Good thick garbage bag, + a few bucks for some co2 cartridges + adapter (from amazon), and zip ties.

Step 1: Resist/Don't resist the urge to put on your Uncle Adolf cosplay, and speak in a German accent. Water the plant a bit (to encourage any critter eggs in the soil to hatch). Put the whole pot and plant into good quality plastic bag (no holes!), squish out as much air as possible, then while holding the bag opening in one hand fill it with co2, zip tie it off (tight! tight!), and wait 3 days. Don't leave it in the sun obviously, somewhere away from direct light, a warmer room can help bugs hatch better, but we don't want the plant to get cooked. Add something in there as well so you don't crush the plant, like a small stool. 3 days in a mostly CO2 atmosphere = dead bugs. Works a treat for indoor things. Look up "co2 bike tire inflator" You would need a few cartridges to fill up the bag, but they are pretty cheap and usually come in multi packs.

Everything in the bag that relies on oxygen to breathe will be dead, including everything hiding in the soil. Plants don't mind.

 

[Emo Supremo]

Two things about deer- they will not approach anything that threatens their eyes or their ankles. When I prune my apple tree in the early spring I stick the long water sprouts/suckers I cut off the apple tree into the day lily patch. It looks a bit odd then, but the deer will not stick their faces into a spiky area to nibble the tender new day lily growth later. When the day lilies get to full size the deer aren't interested. So I pull the sticks out then. If I remember, kek.

i don't think i could repay this forum enough for all the useful information it's given me. a critter of undetermined species (probably raccoon or possum) gnawed on the bottle of liquid fence i forgot to bring back up and i was sweating about it until i remembered your reply. after putting some thin, sharp sticks around the most vulnerable plants, i haven't seen so much as a leaf out of place. it does look a little white trash but i don't give a fuck, it works and i don't have to pay a cent for this method.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

i don't think i could repay this forum enough for all the useful information it's given me. a critter of undetermined species (probably raccoon or possum) gnawed on the bottle of liquid fence i forgot to bring back up and i was sweating about it until i remembered your reply. after putting some thin, sharp sticks around the most vulnerable plants, i haven't seen so much as a leaf out of place. it does look a little white trash but i don't give a fuck, it works and i don't have to pay a cent for this method.

I'm glad that's working out. Know thy enemy!

Another thing I'm experimenting with is laying down on the ground pieces of wire fencing that has 2x3 openings in the mesh. If it's a big piece (like a 4 foot by 5 foot one to keep my pole beans on their trellis well out of Bambi's reach) I flatten it out and raise it up on bricks to make it look more menacing to Bambi ankles. (Go ahead. Step in, Bambi. Make my day.) For in between the tomato and pepper rows, I bent the edges of two 2 foot by 4 foot pieces to make them like self supporting platforms and dropped them at the entry points. It's pretty tight in there so jumping over them may not be attractive. That's what I'm betting on, at any rate. I just put those down, so time will tell with those. But the big pieces laid down in front of the bean trellis have been working to keep Bambi away since I sowed the seed and the plants are about a foot high now and starting to wrap on the trellis. The fence pieces are a PITA to move when I need to get close to the bean plants, they're a little floppy. But they're light and it's no big deal really.

 

[Emo Supremo]

I'm glad that's working out. Know thy enemy!

Another thing I'm experimenting with is laying down on the ground pieces of wire fencing that has 2x3 openings in the mesh. If it's a big piece (like a 4 foot by 5 foot one to keep my pole beans on their trellis well out of Bambi's reach) I flatten it out and raise it up on bricks to make it look more menacing to Bambi ankles. (Go ahead. Step in, Bambi. Make my day.) For in between the tomato and pepper rows, I bent the edges of two 2 foot by 4 foot pieces to make them like self supporting platforms and dropped them at the entry points. It's pretty tight in there so jumping over them may not be attractive. That's what I'm betting on, at any rate. I just put those down, so time will tell with those. But the big pieces laid down in front of the bean trellis have been working to keep Bambi away since I sowed the seed and the plants are about a foot high now and starting to wrap on the trellis. The fence pieces are a PITA to move when I need to get close to the bean plants, they're a little floppy. But they're light and it's no big deal really.

do you mind posting a picture of the fuck-off-bambi fence, since i'm having trouble visualizing it? as of now i don't grow anything that needs this kind of intervention, but it'd be good to have a reference on hand just in case.

 

[Unshakeable Optimist]

Was recently told that my String of Hearts looks sad. How do I make sure I never suffer such humiliation again?

 

[Jimmy Dean Bowl]

Sorry for the double post, (again, oi!) but I gotta say neem and homemade soap spray ain't gonna work for fungus gnats. You need to kill their larva in the potting soil. One way is to cut back on watering so you dry out the top layer of soil. Which can work for minor infestations. A better way is to add 4 ounces of 3% hydrogen peroxide (available at any drug store) to a gallon of water and use that exclusively to water for a few weeks. The H2O2 will not harm your plants. The best way is to get yourself some of those mosquito dunks and steep a quarter of the dunk in a gallon container of your watering water and use that for a few weeks. Or get some commercial "Gnatrol" which is concentrated bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, the main ingredient in mosquito dunks. That stuff really works. BTI is a bacteria that kills fly larva.

Repotting may help, but potting soil sometimes has dormant fungus gnat eggs in it. Keep your sticky sheets up and kill the larvae in the soil with either the H2O2 or BTI. Eventually the population will die out.

I wanted to give a little update on the fungus gnat situation and thank you for your help.
I chose to water with the H2O2 solution as I had some in the house already.
Man alive, the first time I watered Colin (4ft Monstera) with the solution they all rose up from the soil as one, it was simultaeously satisfying and disgusting. Repeat x 20 for the rest of the guys and the number of gnats on the stickies has increased exponentially. I'm changing them every couple of days on the big plants.
The infestation is far worse than I had previously thought. So many of them, they just keep coming!
But I keep watering with the solution and I will prevail over the little gits.

I also just acquired a new pothos marbled queen that I got because of this thread. It is very beautiful and currently in quarantine so as not to be contaminated by the beasties.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

I wanted to give a little update on the fungus gnat situation and thank you for your help.
I chose to water with the H2O2 solution as I had some in the house already.
Man alive, the first time I watered Colin (4ft Monstera) with the solution they all rose up from the soil as one, it was simultaeously satisfying and disgusting. Repeat x 20 for the rest of the guys and the number of gnats on the stickies has increased exponentially. I'm changing them every couple of days on the big plants.
The infestation is far worse than I had previously thought. So many of them, they just keep coming!
But I keep watering with the solution and I will prevail over the little gits.

I also just acquired a new pothos marbled queen that I got because of this thread. It is very beautiful and currently in quarantine so as not to be contaminated by the beasties.

Yer welcome. Glad to help. I've seen that fungus gnat cloud before. It is super disgusting. And shocking. If you don't see a decent decrease in a week or so, bite the bullet and get some Gnatrol. H2O2 is great for minor infestations, but I don't know if it'll do the job completely when they're that bad.

do you mind posting a picture of the fuck-off-bambi fence

Not at all. I'll see what I can do.

 

[NoReturn]

it does look a little white trash but i don't give a fuck, it works and i don't have to pay a cent for this method.

It's not white trash, it's

Was recently told that my String of Hearts looks sad. How do I make sure I never suffer such humiliation again?
View attachment 6297149

Curl it back on itself and pin it in with bobby pins. New roots will grow into the soil from the nodes.

 

[Cemetery Support]

Moving into a spot with a well lit window sill in the bathroom. I wanna get a plant that would thrive in a regularly wet and humid environment. Any suggestions?

 

[NoReturn]

Moving into a spot with a well lit window sill in the bathroom. I wanna get a plant that would thrive in a regularly wet and humid environment. Any suggestions?

Might I interest you in a nice carnivore? Very sweet things, carnivorous plants.

 

[Emo Supremo]

Moving into a spot with a well lit window sill in the bathroom. I wanna get a plant that would thrive in a regularly wet and humid environment. Any suggestions?

the world is your fucking oyster my man. if anything it'd be easier to ask what wouldn't do well in a sunny, humid environment. my vote goes towards some kind of fern, but i'm partial to them because they're simple and elegant without being prone to like, eight thousand different health problems (at least from what i can tell).

 

[Anasa Tristis]

do you mind posting a picture of the fuck-off-bambi fence, since i'm having trouble visualizing it? as of now i don't grow anything that needs this kind of intervention, but it'd be good to have a reference on hand just in case.

Hopefully I'm doing this right. I am a total jpeg attaching retard. And of course photographing a flattened piece of wire fence a few inches above wood chips is hard to see. Look at the bricks.

 

[Lichen Bark]

Hopefully I'm doing this right. I am a total jpeg attaching retard. And of course photographing a flattened piece of wire fence a few inches above wood chips is hard to see. Look at the bricks.

Interesting idea, I can sort of tell from the 200x300 pixel (anti dox resolution) image whats going on, I could see how for a deer stepping into that jiggly grate suspended over bricks would spook them. I have had good luck putting up some tall thin metal posts and stringing 20lb mono-filament fishing at three-four different heights, like around 2-3ft then 5 ft then 8 ft. They bump into it at night and that scares them pretty good. I put some tape around the poles where the line would come in contact to reduce the risk of the pole wearing it away, and it keeps the line from sliding around. You don't actually apply tape to the fishing line just the pole. Only downside with fishing line is you need to replace it every two years, and there's a bunch of line to throw away, oh, and you will also walk into it many times, and your hat will fall off.

@Swagstika Did you set up the plant gas chamber yet?

 

[Anasa Tristis]

Interesting idea, I can sort of tell from the 200x300 pixel (anti dox resolution) image whats going on, I could see how for a deer stepping into that jiggly grate suspended over bricks would spook them. I have had good luck putting up some tall thin metal posts and stringing 20lb mono-filament fishing at three-four different heights, like around 2-3ft then 5 ft then 8 ft. They bump into it at night and that scares them pretty good. I put some tape around the poles where the line would come in contact to reduce the risk of the pole wearing it away, and it keeps the line from sliding around. You don't actually apply tape to the fishing line just the pole. Only downside with fishing line is you need to replace it every two years, and there's a bunch of line to throw away, oh, and you will also walk into it many times, and your hat will fall off.

@Swagstika Did you set up the plant gas chamber yet?

I’ve heard about the fishline method working and I’ve seen it in action at a nearby town’s community garden. (Someone didn’t get the memo about not tagging the lines though and it looked like a weird conceptual art installation.) I may try that some day for particular growing areas. What I’m doing in front of the beans is like bear “unwelcome mats”. Just tweaked for deer psychology. My energy and enthusiasm for putting up a fence around my whole garden wanes every year. And I’ve found that it isn’t always necessary. They’ll leave herbs, onions and potatoes alone. (Except for the potato flowers. I’ll find those cleanly nipped off.) They’ll leave the ‘maters alone if there’s not a drought. They’ll browse winter and summer squash leaves. Beans, beets, and peppers need anti Bambi measures all season. And I just noticed that Bambi nibbed half of my new strawberry row. (?!) I have to spike that with pointy sticks now.

 

[a hapless toad]

Thanks for the fuck off deer info frens. I just bought a house in an area where deer are ubiquitous (and my yard is an extra tasty target due to the apple trees) and I was trying to figure out a cost effective way to deter them from my future raised garden beds. I'll have to protect a 12x12 area at the very least and the thought of having to erect a 7+ foot tall solid fence around the perimeter made my brain and wallet cry.

That said, I am still looking into a greenhouse/small hoophouse instead of a fence as an alternative to extend our pitifully short growing season. My tomatoes are finally going gangbusters just in time for the temps to drop into the mid-30s next week.

 

[admiral]

2 months ago I moved into a new place that stank of cig smoke, so I bought a bunch of plants to clear the air. It's gone pretty good so far aside from one aphid breakout. I dont know much about plants but none of them have accidentally died yet. I like to go to my local garden center and buy all the pathetic discounted plants and bring 'em back to life. I scored a Jasmine for £1 and it's already flowering after some pruning and a new pot.

My two honeysuckles finally got big enough to put outside, but some shithead caterpillar's been chewing on the leaves and one of the plants has gone bald, so I think i'm gonna chop her right down once the flowers are done, repot, and let her grow back. The other plant has gone crazy with flowers and leaves and keeps flinging tendrils all over the place. I've been sort of bonsai-ing her back onto the canes but I think i'm gonna have to invest in a proper tower for her soon. She shares a pot with my John Paul II clematis which I cut back a few weeks ago. He's about 50cm now and looking pretty good.

 

[Pickman's Modeling Agency]

That said, I am still looking into a greenhouse/small hoophouse instead of a fence as an alternative to extend our pitifully short growing season. My tomatoes are finally going gangbusters just in time for the temps to drop into the mid-30s next week.

I feel your pain. Where I live has very extended cool/rainy seasons while the summer is mild and somewhat short. My tomatoes are finally producing and it's going to be too chilly/wet for them soon. Also looking to cover them and keep them warm for a bit longer.

Does anyone here keep a gardening planner/calendar? I picked up a small one for 2025-26 and have been making notes for the remainder of 2024. Just trying to keep track of when I plant, transplant, fertilize, how sunny or rainy it is, and how the plants have been doing.

The cool rainy fall/winter/spring means I have lots of opportunity to grow lettuces. I have a batch of mesclun, mustard, and arugula that should be ready for their first cutting in another week. The kale, chard, and spinach are coming up more slowly.

I've managed to kill a mint. Had a pot of lemon mint and a pot of strawberry mint go completely forgotten and unwatered for a couple weeks. The attempt to bring them back from death was only successful with the lemon. The catnip is doing great and is surprisingly pretty (not that the cats seem interested).

Have a couple staggered plantings of carrots. The oldest carrots have decent greens but I can't see the actual root development and it is concerning me. Same with the radishes. Never grown them before, but I was under the impression you could see their root at the top of the soil.

My fuschias and zinnias are also finally blooming proper-like. I hate how late I got started this year and will have to do better when spring rolls around.

And finally, I have started a worm bin for vermicomposting! I am so excited. Been prepping the bin with kitchen scraps and shredded cardboard and just got the worms in a couple days ago. I'll have to see how they're doing after a week, but I'm weirdly fretting over them. They're worms, they shouldn't be that finicky, right??

 

[Emo Supremo]

Hopefully I'm doing this right. I am a total jpeg attaching retard. And of course photographing a flattened piece of wire fence a few inches above wood chips is hard to see. Look at the bricks.

ohhhhh, i've heard of this kind of thing before, except it was a wire grate ramp that went up to a raised flowerbed as a wild pig deterrent. it seems like it works with basically any animal with cloven hooves, since their weight isn't distributed as evenly compared to a foot or paw that spreads it out over a larger surface.

Does anyone here keep a gardening planner/calendar? I picked up a small one for 2025-26 and have been making notes for the remainder of 2024. Just trying to keep track of when I plant, transplant, fertilize, how sunny or rainy it is, and how the plants have been doing.

i used to keep one for writing down when i planted new additions so i can track how much they've grown, until i lost the two original coral honeysuckle starters to our neighbourhood appointed retard landscaper who cut them down with a weed whacker. twice. maybe it's just me but people that blind and stupid have no business operating a 1950's push mower, let alone high-powered modern equipment.

And finally, I have started a worm bin for vermicomposting! I am so excited. Been prepping the bin with kitchen scraps and shredded cardboard and just got the worms in a couple days ago. I'll have to see how they're doing after a week, but I'm weirdly fretting over them. They're worms, they shouldn't be that finicky, right??

as long as you have a balance of mostly carbon (shredded paper, cardboard, dried leaves), with some nitrogen (grass clippings, plant cuttings, fruit and vegetable scraps), and a little phosphorus (banana peels, eggshells, bone meal, chicken or horse manure), those worms will do just fine. if anything, i feel it'd be ideal to focus on keeping the bacteria in your compost happy. since healthy microbiota trickle up into a healthy ecosystem. this sounds like complicated enviroshit but it really just comes down to turning the bin every two-ish weeks for aeration, moving new material down, pushing older material up, and keeping temperature and moisture levels even throughout.

unless i'm just repeating things you already knew. feel free to disregard if that's the case.