#i need to clean; i need to do laundry; i need to repot some basil; i need to figure out what bills are going to be paid by what paycheck

[cappurrccino]

planning to do things is all fun and games until the time comes to. actually do them.

[iloveschiaparelli]

This might come out a little bit late because my wrist is KILLING me but it's time for new garden update!!

I am, in fact, looking for advice for Spider Plant, African Violet, and random thing attached to my plants. This is a long post but if you are knowledgeable in any of those and would be willing to skip down to the section about those problems I would super appreciate it <3

First of all the spider plant is STILL flowering and making many new babies. I'm thinking about starting a plant section of my art business (which is usually inactive but I've been thinking of booting up again) so this is great news.

The two babies I propogated recently are doing well, for the most part. I didn't propogate them at the same time, so they are at different stages of progress. The first one went into a head-shaped pot with pebbles at the bottom for extra drainage and has found its home at the foot of my bed so that I can feel like I have some form of life in here besides Rookie sneaking in to take naps on my pillow or in my clean laundry when I'm not looking. The bedroom baby seems to have taken root, actually, judging by the fact that just now I pulled gently at it from the base and it didn't budge an inch from the soil, whereas when I first potted it it was looser than a 1900s social pariah (feminine). The leaves are also seeming to stand up straighter.

The second one however is just in a plastic container with no special drainage. The only reason I propogated it at all is because I was sitting watching My Hero Academia with my roommate and one of our friends when I looked Slightly to the right and had The Urge to Repot. I tried so hard to resist, I really did. I fought The Urge for at least 30 mins before finally, in the middle of an episode, i just stood up, went out on the balcony at 10.30 at night and propogated it without warning.

I'm pretty sure the only words I offered as explanation in the moment were "The plant was calling." I looked like a madman shoveling dirt into a cup in the middle of the night when previously I had shown zero indication that I would be leaving the couch until bedtime.

It's doing alright, the soil seems overly wet but that is probably because the plant is new enough that it hasn't yet developed the roots to drink up. I just need to give it time while I find a proper pot for it. I think I have one in my bedroom actually, I just need to paint it.

On the OTHER hand, the main spider plant is also turning brown at the ends which is kind of concerning. I don't know if it's the stem from the baby I just took off, drawing nutrients away (see blurry photo of long stem turning brown and dying) or if it's some kind of consequence of me accidentally overwatering her last week because I thought a water stake was a good idea (I'm never using water stakes again). If anyone has any insight on that, i would be thrilled to hear it. It's indoors so unless some nasty bug has gotten in, it's unlikely to be bug eating it.

One thing that I DO know bugs are eating is my BASIL!!!!!! I don't know if you guys are familiar with spotted lanternflies, but they're super invasive here in the US and in my state are actually considered "Under Quarantine" which means that affected counties/cities are kept track of and, if you live in one, you need a permit & training course on finding and eliminating spotted lanternflies before you can sell any kind of organic matter outside of the quarantine area. They eat grapevines like mad which is threatening to VA's economy (they're all big wine people)

Their main source of food is Tree of Heaven, which coincidentally is ALSO an invasive species from Asia. Including kudzu, bamboo and asian pear trees this is 4 plants and 1 HORRIBLE little bug that are wreaking havoc on Virginia's ecosystem because of being DELIBERATELY!!! introduced as an ornamental (Decorative!) plant. (bug hitched a ride) Unbelievable.

Anyway they also like to eat basil and I have my basil outside so that it can get a sufficient amount of sun to keep from wilting all the time, so guess what I find every time I go outside! This little PECKERHEAD (or his brothers) just hanging out on my basil sitting perfectly still just like I'm his dad and I just walked into the room and he's trying to pretend he wasn't just on his phone. Anyway today I went to get some leaves for cooking and like half of them were just absolutely emacerated with brown/black spots and holes because the lanternfly nymphs have been nibbling on them. Varmints.

Spotted lanternflies are vulnerable to neem oil (So are brown marmorated stinkbugs btw), tea tree oil, and peppermint oil. I mean to purchase whichever one is harmless to my other plants to spray the lanternflies with to kill them. They're also wildly attracted to milkweed, but it's actually toxic to them, so management strategies for spotted lanternflies often suggest planting milkweed on your property so that they will drink the sap and then die.

I intend to, once I am not struggling to pay bills, purchase a native milkweed plant and stick it allll the way on the end of the balcony AWAY from my other plants in order to draw the lanternflies away and hopefully kill them.

I'm not looking forward to cleaning up the bodies. In fact, a couple minutes before taking the above photo I actually leaned over to take a pic of another one and got a dead one in my hair. I was mortified when I sat up and realized. I'm really, really, really going to hate it when they start reaching maturity, because mature spotted lanternflies are HUGE. They're like 2 inches long, 1 inch wide, and fat-looking. I saw one smeared on the pavement last fall and wanted to throw up. I don't know if I have the strength to kill them myself, which is why I'm hoping neem oil spray and milkweed will kill them for me without having to deal with smashed moth remains,

Here are the life stages of spotted lanternfly, map of their invaded areas, and pictures of the Tree of Heaven for your information to kill/manage them <3

PEsTS aside, I have really good news! My wildflowers have all sprouted!!!!!!

Looking back, I wish I'd verified whether they were native or not. I hope I don't poison the landscape when they go to seed. Once they start flowering, I'll try to identify any invasive or harmful species and weed them out, I suppose.

They first started showing green on a day when i was feeling especially depressed about my recent breakup, so it was HUGE mood boost. It honestly felt like God was like "Yeah ya'll it's time to go green. Right now go go go go go!!"

Don't mind the plant water stakes, they're empty I just don't have a great place to put them right now. I intend to keep them only so I can use them when I go out of town for a few days at a time, so that I don't need to ask my roommates to water my basil daily, or whatever. The first two pictures I took when I first noticed the seedlings, and the third one is from today, along with most of the other photos.

One thing that I am concerned about is that I'm noticing these little banana-shaped things (pods? eggs? seeds?) that look like they've been clamped/clipped onto the leaves of many of the wildflower seedlings, especially the ones on the left end of the planter. They almost look like hairclips that have been shut onto the leaves? I'm really confused. They're pretty dry looking, and my friend James broke one apart and it just kinda disintegrated. (I was too wigged out to touch it) They can't have been there very long, a couple days before I noticed at least.

If anyone has ANY idea what these are, I'd really appreciate it. I'm worried that they're bug eggs. I really hate interacting with/looking at bugs, especially bug eggs, so I tried looking it up myself and had to stop because uhh... pictures of bug eggs. But they definitely don't look like part of the plant, especially since this planter is a mixture of different species and they're showing up on multiple types.

The beeblossom, which I've learned is also called a Whirling Butterflies or a Wand Flower much more commonly than it's called a beeblossom, is doing quite well! The leaves and stems have shifted completely from red to green, and it's showing signs that it might possibly flower for a second time. I really hope it does, the flowers last time only lasted a couple days and I don't remember if I got any good pictures but they were really pretty. I've repotted it into a neat woven-basket pot that I got at the local garden center (This garden center has a cat mascot! That lives at the store! I love him. He let me pet him.)

The lavender also went into a similar pot, to get it out of the rice pot that it was in before. Also at this garden center I found a catnip plant!!!! Rookie has been loving it whenever I give him a leaf, but surprisingly I don't think he's figured out the source plant because he doesn't go up to it and sniff it at all. I think he's more interested by the finches, cardinals, and robins that have (finally) found our birdfeeder. To give you an idea of how much the birds have been vibing, this feeder was full to the top only a week ago.

The Echinopsis babies are doing OK. Echinopsis generally do a terrible job of communicating how they are doing. They don't seem to be especially active in growing? Neither the babies nor the parent. I suspect know I repotted the parent into too-small of a pot, so I hope to remedy that at the next opportunity. Just.... large pots take up so much space!!! And they're much more expensive than small pots, especially since I'm so averse to plastic containers due to issues with overwatering plants in plastic containers.

The Echinopsis babies haven't been drinking as much as I'd like, but they HAVE been drinking, which is a sign that the roots are functioning just fine. They were each able to take a root or two from the parent when I propogated them about a month ago, so it's good to know that they're doing alright down under the soil. I'm thinking about selling each of them for $35, with the hand-painted pot, but I hate to part with them. I get so emotionally attached.

The Thyme, on the other hand, has shown ZERO signs of growth and it's been 12 days. I know they have a long germination time but between their complete silence and the fact that I planted them in the wrong soil (I should have used sandy loam but it's just Miracle Gro) and the soil has been wetter than a jellyfish since I planted, AND they're just from a dollar tree Herb Rocket, I'm starting to become suspicious that they're duds. I'll keep watering and watching them until after I hit the 28 days, but I'm definitely not feeling great about the thyme.

The herb rocket was supposed to be planted as just one roll, also, but because I was using a long container I took some scissors and just cut the rolled up seed tape in half lengthwise before rerolling and planting. The directions were also ambiguous as to whether I was supposed to leave the top of the rolls visible, level with the soil, or to cover them up with the 1/4 inch soil that I've begun to notice is typical of planting instructions.

The left roll you can see is a little bit messed up, because the other day in a fit of disappointment I pulled it out of the dirt and unrolled it to check for anything, ANYTHING, ANY!!! SIGNS OF GROWTH! I found nothing. But that, not before, is the point when I googled the germination time of thyme, then I felt like an idiot and did my best to stuff it back into the soaking wet soil.

God help me with this plant.

My roommate pulled out a little mushroom decoration (she loves mushrooms) for the garden, initially intended to go in the wildflower planter. It was there for about an hour before I took it out, because I didn't want it to kill any of the wildflower growth. Instead I put it between the two thyme rockets. Hopefully, when (if?) the thyme actually starts growing, it will look like there's a little mushroom home nestled between the two shrubs.

Another plant whose performance I am currently dissatisfied with is the African Violet. It's wilting again. At this point it's like, "What am I doing wrong now?" What makes it even worse is that this is the only plant that was given to me as like a, "nurture this plant as a metaphor for nurturing your spirit!" so it's even more depressing that I'm having difficulty keeping it alive. I feel like this plant's survival is tied to my success as a human being (Not really, but that's the vibe).

The leaves are just totally limp. Not really mushy, but I could see them getting that way if it weren't for the fact that they usually just dry up and wither away first. The soil is very wet, which I don't understand because I've been doing my best not to overwater it and it's been a week since it's last douse. The leaves have lost their yellow tinge from overwatering, but only on the topside. The bottomside of the leaves still look brownish, as if they're dried up (except that they arent) If there are any African Violet experts in the crowd, I would LOVE for you to lend me any advice you can give me from the picture <3 I love you.

I've been pruning off dead sections and kept it indoors with a stable temperature in a spot where it gets plenty of indirect light, so I don't understand what the issue is. I'm beginning to blame plastic containers for all of my problems due to all of my Problem Plants being in plastic. (Spider Plant momma, new baby Spider Plant, African Violet, Thyme, Basil in the early months, Beeblossom, probably the catnip soon too).

I desperately want to move all my plastic planted plants to ceramic/terracotta or woven containers, but the issue is just that plastic is the cheapest material for planters, and since I've been upsizing, I genuinely do not have the budget for terracotta right now. Maybe in 2 months, but by then the Basil & Echinopsis will already have had their growth stifled, the Thyme will be drowned, and the African Violet will be well and truly dead.

I wasn't able to get any good pictures of the snake plants in this lighting, but they are doing alright also. Their roots haven't quite put down in the new soil, but I think they're kind of growing anyways??? I dunno.

Finally, here is a photo of the Potted Plant Empire as it is today, excepting the indoor plants and the wildflower planter being cut off:

That little pot at the end is my roommate's rosemary, and the orange glass pot is her lavender. Mine is in the woven basket next to it.

I feel like that guy in the recent Drive Time app advertisement. "I FEEL STRONGG!!!"