The Plant Mistress

All of my plants are healthy and happy, lol.  I’ve not purchased any more, nor have any died (since the great herb die off).  I will work on posting some of the little things I’ve been doing, just to keep all the plants tidy and happy.

Here are some pics that I took on my last trip to the coast.

Enjoy!

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Sadly, I never took pics of it while things were thriving, but I had all of my herbs potted in these cute pots (handpainted by yours truly) that all coordinated.  Tres’ cute.   As I’ve mentioned before, the herbs are dunzo so I’m repurposing my cute pots into cactus pots - they are painted (not sealed) terra cotta so they should work well.  I’ve got 11 cacti and succulents that I am going to repot tomorrow so wish me luck.  Last time, despite gardening gloves and tongs, I was picking spines out of my hands for days.

Here are some things I’ve learned about herbs -

1. Water is important - I know, thats a suprise, but trust me on this.
2. When you go away for a few days in July, make sure to move your herbs out of the south facing window they live in.  Otherwise, they will dry up and shrivel, no matter how much water (see #1) you give them upon your return.
3. Aphids spontaneously generate.*
4. More water.
5. Harvest regularly, otherwise they get unhappy.

Pics will be posted of the new kitchen cactus garden.

*Yes, I know spontaneous generation was proven to be not possible by the experiements of Francesco Redi and Louis Pasteur, but I seriously have no clue where they came from.  They never migrated to other plants and afflicted only the dill and cilantro.  All my other plants are clear.

My big Dracaena got knocked over while I was on vacation.  To make matters worse, it laid there, in the baking sun (it had been on a little table that got some shade during the hottest part of the day) without water, without much dirt around its roots for days, until I got back home.  Its now inside and will be repotted tomorrow.  Poor thing has scorch marks on the leaves and just looks dried out.  It’s not dead, the leaves aren’t crunchy, but it isn’t a happy plant right now.

My cat is still digging in my Cat Palm. Haha, no pun intended.  I’m not sure how to make her stop as she waits until I am in the other room or sleeping to do it.  I think that I’m going to put some bricks on top of the pot, making a little collar of bricks around the tree and covering the dirt.  I’m so tired of sweeping up dirt.

I have made a promise to myself - I’m not going to try to grow anything edible anymore.  Granted, I did have more success this year than I have before, but it still turned out to be a dismal failure.  So that means, no herbs, no fruits, nada.  I’m just going to focus on the things I’m good at - cacti, succulents and houseplants.

On the happy side, my cacti out front are doing very well!  There a flurry of new growth both on my huge Opuntia and on the wee one.  One of my unidentified cactus has almost 1″ of new growth on it since May, which pleases me quite a bit.  My Sansevieria (the normal one and the cylindrica) are throwing out masses of new growth as well.  The formerly mildewy Kalanchoe is hanging in there.  I’ve got a Calathea on my desk that is flourishing and I think that it is the happiest one I have now.  And, how can we forget the Zombie Coleus?  It is doing really well since I managed to reanimate it.

I just got back from a too-short weekend at the coast and a brief jaunt across the country only to come home and find the majority of my herbs in my kitchen garden to be dead.  This further reinforces my belief that I need to stick to pretty plants, not foodstuffs.

I took a ton of pics while at the coast.  We stayed at a wonderful little place that had some fabulous gardens.  Now, I’m the first to admit that I don’t get along with flowers, but I do like to look at them so I’ll be posting those soon.  I did buy a plant while over at the coast at the same little grocery store that I purchased my huge Aloe at in May.  It is a Jade of some sort - little cute round leaves attached in a rosette pattern.  The leaves are bright green with maroon borders.  I thought it was a silver dollar Jade when I purchased it, but the coloration and leaf thickness is all wrong.

I also purchased a new Coast Redwood seedling since my other one baked in the sun.  This one will stay inside, where I can keep track of it.

In my previous post,  I mentioned this new Sansevieria.  I come bearing pics!

As you can see, it has long, arching, round leaves.  I intially thought it was a Sansevieria cylindrica but I’ve yet to find a pic online (or in any of my books) that has the same coloring or the same arching growth pattern.   Here is a closeup of the tip.

So, long story short, I’m not sure what I have.  Is it a Sansevieria?  That’s what the tag said, but it could be wrong, lol.  Regardless of what it is, it has quickly become one of my favorites.

Last week I purchased some sort of Sansevieria.  I’m not sure what type it is, but a pic will be posted soon.  Its a beautiful plant with long, slightly arched cylindrical leaves that come to a point on the end (a sharp point I might add) and its a light milky green.

I have aphids…again.  This time they have afflicted my cilantro.  I’m not even sure where they came from, but they weren’t there on Saturday and then today, BOOM!  Aphid city.  They’ve not spread to my other herbs in my window pots, but I have no doubt they will.  Tomorrow I’m going to hit the cilantro with a shower to dislodge them, then I will reassess and plan my next move.

Let me tell you, I think that I’m going to give up herbs after this year - they have been nothing but headaches for me.

Not plant related, but I just bought a new digital cam that hopefully won’t suck like my current one!  Expect to see some new pics sometime soon.

I think that I need some new plants to take pics of, don’t you?

For background, check this out.

We live in a cute new subdivision - all the houses are less than 5 years old so there isn’t much in the way of landscaping yet.  Well, when we moved in, the owner of our house decided to hire a random handyman he knew to do our landscaping.  Bad idea.

Very bad idea.

We wound up with a front yard that is nothing but beauty bark.  Big, huge chunks of nasty bark.  There wasn’t any tarp put down under the bark so weeds grow up.  We’ve been dealing with this for 2 years now and finally the property management people have sent someone out to look at it.  The fabulous news is that we might be getting nice lush sod out front and hopefully on the sides, along with some nice mulch-type bark instead of the huge chunks!  Yay!

Of course, while out in the yard, walking around with the real landscape guru today, I got eaten up by carpenter ants.  Apparently, they love the bark and make their nests in it.  When they bite you, they actually inject a smidge of formic acid into the bite.  No wonder my feet aren’t happy tonight.

Glad to know that something loves the bark because I sure as hell do not.