#i'm so happy <3 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

tripably · 2 years ago

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Yesterday I reorganized my house plants in a way that made me really happy

Like I'm So Proud

But also So Disappointed because it's not like literally anyone will ever notice :-D I had to physically drag my partner around our living room and dining area to quiz him about what used to be where and where is it now and what has changed pots and why these changes have been excellent etc. He did good but it's like with all compliments - it doesn't quite feel the same if you have to ask for it.

So let me give you* a litte tour because I really want to talk about this some more 🥰

Now here we have most of my Pothos collection. The pale one on the far right, 'Lemon Lime' or something, used to be next to our tv and most probably didn't get enough light there, but definitely was always in the way when doing laundry. I don't have the energy to explain it in detail but we need to hang our washed clothes to dry next to our tv and though the pothos looked really pretty there it was unpractical as all hell. It's also not at the prettiest health of its life but I mean it was only just moved here, so it's not really set yet. Anyway I love that it has darker green at the edges of some leaves but is mostly a neon colour. Really pretty 🥰

The one in the middle is not doing well. It never has. I'd like to say that I don't know why but I've been neglecting it its whole life so that's probably why :-D I think it's an Epipremnum pinnatum so not a golden pothos but it's in the same family and I think of it as one anyway. It keep growing leggy stems with no leaves, and I keep cutting them off. Once I've got back to watering it appropriately, and if it still keeps doing that, I'll have to figure out the real root cause. For now, I'll try to just give it more love.

The one on top right is really pretty on the other side but I'd like it to be pretty on all sides so it was high time to turn it around to encourage more balanced growth. I'm pretty sure it's a 'Pearls and Jade'. It's a really good girl.

The one on bottom left is, to the best of my knowledge, a 'Manjula'. It's doing surprisingly well considering it also has been neglected nearly all of it's life. Perhaps I gave it good enough care in the beginning, or perhaps it has developed Stockholm syndrome. Good for him, I guess. Yes it's s he. No, I couldn't say why.

This one is a sweetheart, a 'Marble Queen'. It used to be next to my pc and got neglected severely in a really bright spot, so it lost nearly all of its leaves near the bottom of the pot. As of yesterday, it is now the first and only pothos I have that is encouraged to grow the way all vines are supposed to - upwards along a "tree trunk". We'll see what happens. She's a beauty on a good day. Don't tell the others but it's a bit of a favourite. I hope I handled it with enough care and didn't damage it when wrapping around the pole. I want to take cuttings of it to make sure it survives but I also don't want to do too much at once, so I'll have to do my best to stay patient and hopeful.

These are a bit of an odd bunch. The emerald palm (also known as zz plant) is one of my biggest successes in the sense that it can barely fit anywhere because it just keeps on growing. It's so pretty. I love it.

The cathedral cactus was a gift from an ex-colleague of mine as a cutting, and is prized for that reason specifically. I'm not the biggest fan of where it is right now, but the emerald palm is making my life difficult and my house just isn't big enough. Anyway, I love the purplish hue on the plant <3

Then in the corner we have my experimental greenhouse/closed environment. On top of the jar we have a common orchid, the substrate of which is made of bark and some green moss from my backyard. Inside the jar we have some more moss from my backyard, and the plant in there is a silver vine. It is thriving!! The orchid "bowl" on top is a new addition though, we'll see what happens from now on. The bottom of the bowl has holes so i'm thinking that while the silver vine transpires moisture through its leaves, it will help the orchid to have just enough water in the substrate to keep growing and staying alive without the risk of overwatering. But that the bowl and the orchid still work as a kind of a lid, meaning that most of the water will stay in the system, keeping humidity high and the silver vine thriving. And then every once in a while I'll need to add more water into the system, and I can do it just by watering the orchid from on top. As said, we'll see what happens. Side note: this is the longest-surviving orchid I've ever had; usually they flower for a while and then slowly start dying on me due to a mix of overwatering and neglect. This one has been in my care for months and is still alive. A modern day miracle, really.

Now this dracaena I got as a stem cutting at school in like 2019 or something. It used to be where the 'Marble Queen' is now, but it had definitely outgrown the spot. It's an easy one to keep alive.

Behind it we have two more pothos. The first one, I think, is another 'Pearls and Jade', so severely neglected that it probably won't survive. I honestly completely forgot about it, as it was buried behind a pile of books on my pc table. Next to it we have a plain but beautiful 'Jade'. I got a cutting of it from my grandma in like 2017. It's been with me through quite a few periods of neglect and pests and general shit, surviving mostly because I've had the foresight to take cuttings in time 😅 It is my most prized house plant and more important than many of my other possessions. All my friends have received potted cuttings of it as housewarming gifts, so I should be fairly safe in terms of keeping it alive one way or another. Decentralized investment or some shit.

Now here we have five saint paulias, all with pink flowers. They are at the moment doing their best to recover from anthropogenic drought. They're used to it, and I think they flower almost all the time as a result of it. Flowering, after all, is often induced by the plant realizing its own mortality and jumping at the last chance to produce heirs. I got them from my mom a couple of years ago when she and my stepdad sold my childhood home and didn't have space for them at the new place. According to her, some of them are as old as me. I used to neglect the poor bastards already back when I lived home and was occasionally in charge of caring for them.

The money tree at the far end of the window sill is leggy and unstable and ridiculous and precious. <3

Here we have some more saint paulias, plus some placeholder pots for future saint paulias. These are also from my mom. I'm really happy with this area in our home right now, with the spices and dried chilis and dried mushrooms at the back and the blue-flowering fuzzy leaved beauties in front.

This here is my cuttings station. It would be a perfect place for so many plants if it weren't for the dining table that's way too close to it. We might have bought a table that's a smidge too big for the space 😅 so far I'm the only person who's ever knocked a pot down from that windowsill, but I'm not willing to have guests live through that experience at my house. So, only cuttings it is. This is also the place where problems are created and purposefully ignored. You'll see.

Off to the right of middle of the picture we have some more saint paulias forming roots so that they can be repotted. They'd grown so uncentered that I decided to just cut them out, remove some of the lowest leaves, and stick them in water. It's going extremely well; the first one was cut a few months back and would be ready for potting any day, I just need to defrost my potting soil first. The second one was cut yesterday. There's also one more saint paulia hiding, already in a pot (the white one) that I got as a leaf cutting from my partner's grandma. It has very pretty, multicolored leaves and cute pink flowers, and it's not doing well. I'm trying to first aid it into a bit of a better health before repotting it, and I haven't really thought much further than that.

There's also a bunch of pothos cuttings that I don't know what to do with - I should probably give them to someone as it's clear I don't have any room for new pots. But it's winter so I can't send them by post, and my local friends already have what they want from here. And, I always keep safety cuttings on hand in case my neglect kills one of them. At the moment, I only have the classic golden pothos as a cutting - the one furthest to right. I'll need to figure out a place for a pot once the cuttings have rooted. In the future.

At the other end we got some more money trees. One of them is an accidental cutting from the leggy one on the other windowsill. The other one is a cutting from Spain back when international travel with undocumented plants wasn't illegal within EU. I hope they don't start growing any faster, because I don't know where to fit them next.

Also, and it's not very visible in this picture, I've decided to give propagating an avocado yet another go. I don't know where to put it if it succeeds, other than in a bottom-watering pot with a tank. Let's not make that into a problem right now.

This here is another 'Pearls and Jade', I think. It's also very pretty, which is why I'm keeping both. This one's been here forever and I've tried to have it grow in a balanced way, but yesterday I decided to be done with that and embraced the one-sidedness. So I stuck in that beautiful, curly branch and some sticks to keep it upright, and we'll see where we go from here. I was told yesterday that we have a ps5 coming soon and that it might have to be placed on this very spot. I'm preparing notes for the negotiations.

And finally, the saddest little silver vine ever to live. I should have taken before-and-after pics yesterday before I cleaned it up, it was so incredibly ridiculous. Most of the vines were dead or dying, crumbling and saggy leaves everwhere, half of the branches dead st near the substrate. Now it's just small. This is the spot where the lemon lime pothos used to be btw; this dwarf of a vine should not become a problem during laundry time any time soon 😅 and I really love this pot, specifically here. I'm not expecting the plant to survive but of course I'm hoping <3

Ok thank you listening <3 If anyone actually did read through all of it, please let me know which plant or placement or picture or detail is your favourite <3 Mine is the half-broken wall clock in picture 6 👀 It's only half broken because it actually tells the time correctly if you just ignore the numbers and concentrate on the direction of the hands - like, clearly the picture was taken at 8:30 😁