Plant mom updates

I have talked about my plant mom journey these past few years off and on in my blog. I first got interested in plants a few years ago when we moved from a small apartment to an independent house. I planted trees and plants with great enthusiasm, but my inexperience showed, and most of them died a relatively quick death.

The plants that didn’t die of neglect died because of Coco’s nasty digging/urinating habit or Piglet’s penchant for uprooting plants.

So I gave up any dreams of a beautiful garden until last year – bored at home, I got into buying indoor plants online.

With both Piglet and Coco much older, it felt like I could get back into planting again. And this time, the results have also been a lot more encouraging.

Warning: Massive photo dump to follow.

What did I do different this time?

Well, I lowered my expectations quite a bit 😅😜.

Also, this time I benefited from a lot of Internet knowledge – seriously, it’s incredible the amount of knowledge out there. I have been following a ton of gardening subreddits on Reddit, and there is so much helpful and pertinent advice that it gave me the push I needed to start this trial and error plant mom journey of mine.

My Journey

First, I did a lot of reading before buying any plants. I made sure to start small with easy maintenance plants like a ZZ plant, Areca palms, and a Spider plant – all three of them are thriving beautifully.

Once I started to get a little comfortable with these, I branched out to a little more variety. I rather ambitiously bought two anthuriums – beautiful, healthy specimens and a Livistona tabletop palm, which I was assured would thrive under minimal light.

Sadly, these plants no longer look healthy, and I don’t want to share their current photos. Suffice to say; I don’t think there’s any coming back for these plants.

It was a good thing I bought the following three plants before the anthurium and Livistona failed. Otherwise, I would just not have had the courage to get these three beauties.

I have been told that all three plants can be tricky, so I feel pretty happy with how these plants are doing.

With my hopes high, I then grabbed the opportunity of a festive discount and bought a dahlia and a tulsi point. Sadly, I have reverted to form. The dahlia died within a week (to be fair, it was the week I had gone to visit my family, and it was a week of copious rain). I had hoped they would somehow survive the week. Unfortunately, no 😟.

My tulsi plant seems to have picked up some strange infection that I cannot identify despite multiple Reddit pleas for help. Finally, I have drowned it in neem oil (supposedly an excellent all-purpose pest repellant), but I am not very hopeful. I have trimmed down all the affected parts, but I think this will die a slow, agonizing death until nothing is left.

Status of my other plants

My other plants have been doing steadily well – the money plant that I grew out of a tiny leaf is thriving (so well that I am planning to propagate it shortly), and so is my peace lily (although it hasn’t been flowering). My philodendron and Rhapis palm are also pretty steady. I really should have taken pictures of them, but they are on my bookshelves inside, and I was too lazy to take them out into the sun for a pic.

What’s next in my plant journey?

I want to replace my dead Livistona, and I also have my heart set on a poinsettia – just perfect for Christmas. I want to try growing a dahlia again, but I don’t think I have the courage after my previous attempt failed so spectacularly.

Long-term, I am not very sure where I am going with this house plant thing. I started getting into them at the peak of lockdown when I grew little nuts and stir-crazy sitting at home. Now that things are beginning to open up here 🤞, I am unsure if I will have the time to take care of them. I know I will continue to maintain my current collection. But I think it’s time to put a halt to buying any more (after the poinsettia and Livistona, of course 😉).

Besides, I am running out of room to keep them at home 😒.