here is the philodendron I got from my Grandma. It has one new leaf and boy is it a leaf to write home about. While I was looking at it I thought I saw some bugs on it so it's going to get put in the bathtub to get a spray down of Neem oil after I write this. Because fuck bugs on my indoor plants. They all die.
This is my mum's passion flower that she's had for years but she's never really taken care of it beyond watering it when it wilts so I hijacked it and repotted it as well as given it a new trellis to climb on. It's doing a lot better since I've taken it in.
Here are a selection of bathroom plants. First is the Christmas cactus (if has white flowers) I bought it around Easter and it was blooming then, it finished blooming and has started making new segments. One segment was taken off when I took it home and that segment rooted and I gave it to my step mother. It's doing quite well in the humidity of the bathroom. The African Violet is next to it. I bought this thing for a dollar about a year ago and I measured it a few days ago and it has a surface area of one square foot which is incredible considering where it started. It's hooked up to a wick watering system which is basically cheating.
The other two are young butterfly weed plants. I think I'll keep these indoors (in the winter they can chill in the garage for dormancy) until next year because they're quite small.
This is the blueberry bush's second year of life and in the second year it decided to make flowers. It's doing quite well and I supplement it's waterings and monthly feedings with coffee grounds for an extra boost.
The swamp milkweed has come back with a vengeance this year. Hopefully this year I'll get more caterpillars on it
Next to it I have an onion sprout I cut out of a sprouting onion and planted. The theory is to try and repel aphids because they were a big issue on the milkweed last year and because I feed it to monach caterpillars I can't use any pesticides to deal with them.
Strawberry plants in hanging baskets and an itty bitty baby tomato. I sprouted the tomato from a grocery store tomato to see if I could do it. I don't expect it to perform as well as last year's tomato (but what could? That thing grew 5 feet tall) but it's an interesting experiment.
I want to try overwintering the strawberries so they are able to produce next year, I know most people don't do this but I'm up for it.
My mum bought these Dipladenias because she liked them. I just take care of them for her like I do with all the plants she impulse buys. They live under the gazebo because the intense sun on the deck was roasting their flowers. Since moving they're produced better flowers.
Two more of my mother's plants that I take care of. A million bells (in a teapot) and some gerber daisies. The gerberas were getting roasted by the sun so they now enjoy the protection of the gazebo and last year the million bells also got toasted by the sun so they stay under the gazebo too.
This is a baby blazing morning star I planted in a garden that was overgrown after spending about 2 weeks clearing the plot of two random trees that grew and a huge mass of stick things. The 2 weeks includes days it rained and days I couldn't work because I hurt myself working the day before. The garden is very dry but thankfully blazing morning star is very drought resistant, I keep a close eye on it and water it every few days and it's been growing slowly but surely. Once it blooms (not this year) I've heard their flowers are butterfly crack
At least none of the other plants seem to be affected, and there are no rats in our apartment building afaik. I have no idea what to do about it. If I leave traps outside, lizards will just run across them and set them off. And I don't want to leave some sort of poison out, really... seems like it would be a bad/dangerous idea.
