Perishables

There comes a time in a house plant's life when it simply just must... well, die!  This money tree had a rough start and I thought I had nurtured it well enough, but I wonder if the soil it came in was too terrible for it to make much of a go.  I had it from about end of February to end of September.

It started with 5 trunks, down to 1!

I thought this one trunk might make it through.

But sure enough it yellowed and rotted just like the others.

I had received this orchid when it was in bloom probably close to 2 years ago.  I was never able to get it to bloom myself, and in fact it never had any tremendous growth.  The leaves slowly withered more and more and finally the new growth it DID have was so insubstantial I decided to just toss it.

On the plus side, I've freed up some cool pots and am clearing out some room for new babes!

Baby Orchid (A Memoir)

Here are excerpts from my original "plant-tracking" journal entries:

9/19/2011
Repotted orchid into larger (8") clay pot with new soil (Hoffman's Special Orchid Mix - 52% pine bark, 40% Fir Bark, 8% Special Charcoal).

Here it is repotted in the Hoffman's Special Orchid Mix with 8" pot.

12/19/2011
Moved orchid to south-facing room with windows (my brother's old room).  It was advised by my coworker (who gave me the plant) that the leaves were too dark of green, thus it needed more light.  When I thought about it, compared to the new mature orchid's leaves, that is an accurate assessment.  (The mature orchid's leaves are lighter.)  I occasionally water baby orchid with a diluted Jack's Classic 30-10-10 fertilizer.



3/15/2012
My coworker advised that I clip the bloom spike to a vertical/plumb dowel, to redirect the spike.  (The spike started to grow around Thanksgiving, and was growing in the forward direction, same as the leaves).  At first, clipping the spike seemed to work, but soon the spike began to shrivel under the clip and it has since completely withered away - as opposed to the mature orchids spikes, which, post bloom, lost color and density, but retained their size and shape.  I plan to repot baby orchid back into its smaller dish and place it vertically so it stops this awkward growth pattern.  Hopefully the spike comes again next year and I will be ready for it.

4/1/2012
Not looking too well lately - leaves are looking very shriveled.  Moved it down to living room north window sill.

9/27/2012
I think it was down to one leaf and so finally I bought some of that spongy soil and repotted it into its original little pot (actually, I repotted into its old soil and pot first and the next morning that last leaf was fully turgid and erect, so I decided to buy more of that soil).  That was probably the end of April or beginning of May.  Now the orchid has 4 leaves again and tons of roots.  It even has a root grown over an inch out of the one drainage hole.  I may repot it soon, if the roots are finding their way out of the pot, that suggests to me that it needs a bigger pot.

11/26/2012
There are presently "5" leaves on this one, the 5th seeming to be stuck at some stunted length, and 2 others being shorter than leaf #1 and what is possibly leaf #3 or #4.  I was hoping it would spike again this year, but it seems the trauma it was subject to over the past year, between a botched spike and a near-death experience through transitioned soil, has preoccupied the babe's attentions.  There's always next year!

Here it is in the foreground September 2013 before it finally died.

The baby orchid never ended up blooming for me, so I don't know what type it may have been or even what color.  I suspect a bright, deep pink, though, as the undersides of the leaves were always a deep pink color.

Orchids Aplomb.. and A-Plummet!

I am pleased to report that my oldest orchid appears to be blooming again.  I think this is the second time I have been able to get it to bloom.

My second oldest is shooting out still, but suffering dramatically.  It's hard to tell if it will even push out one bloom before it completely croaks.  I think the dry air this winter has been especially hard on my more tropical plants.  I've started placing jars of water every where around all my plants.  I think I may need to double this effort, though, as the jars almost completely dry out after a week.  I don't have any good photos of the second oldest at the moment.

The absolute youngest is now completely dead.  I was keeping a close eye on it for awhile because it had sprouted a "baby," which I thought was odd given that the orchid itself was already so tiny.  I had read that you want to wait until the roots are at least an inch or two before detaching the baby from the parent plant, but this one's roots stayed way too small.  The parent plant deteriorated quickly and by the time I realized it had died, the baby was already starting to shrivel as well.  Unfortunately I left for vacation the day after I finally separated the baby and so I had to set it down in a completely inhospitable situation (just on top of another orchid's soil, and the air was so dry the whole time I was gone.  Perhaps if I had been home I could have spritzed it every day, or at least construct a more appropriate atmosphere for it.).

So now I am down to three orchids.  At my peak I had five.  I think my apartment is very unideal for orchids, which is why the smaller ones seem to struggle to develop here.  If I get any more orchids, I'm going to have to develop some sort of terrarium-like environment for the winter and perhaps take more rigor in maintaining them.  For now, I'll just let these more mature orchids take their course.

Impending Bloom Boom!

I haven't necessarily been neglecting my plants lately, I just haven't inspected them as thoroughly as I sometimes do.  That is until today when I was making my watering rounds and I noticed a few of the little rascals are gearing up to pop some buds pretty soon!

Here is my kalanchoe plant FINALLY starting to show signs of blooms again!  I caught these little pricks out of the corner of my eye and was like WHOA, something is going on here!  So I brought it out into the light and took a closer examination.

We have a couple peaks here showing some new growth formations!

Below is what a typical new leaf growth looks like...

...and below you can see the new bloom growth adjacent to typical leaf growth.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure we have some blooms making their way back into this plant!

And my oh my I did not even see this spike start, look how long it has gotten!

What I like about this orchid arrangement is I can see that the roots are doing very well.  I never really water this one much, since the water tends to never really evaporate from the bottom - possibly because of the shape of this vase?  I mean, the soil is mostly bark so there is plenty of airspace - although it is rather tall so maybe that makes it tough for the water to dry out?  I'm just pondering this because the plants that I have in smaller glass jars or vases definitely dry out, and I can't quite put my finger on why this one doesn't.  Perhaps it's a moot point, given that we have a nice spike going here!

Orchid Surprise!

I hope I am not jinxing it when I make this post, but today I spotted a new spike!

There are a number of new roots shooting out of this orchid, but you can see the one towards the top in between a few leaves is the spike.  It's hard to see in photo, but the roots have a silvery coating and a more textured surface.  The spike is smoother and definitely solid green.

I had received this orchid as a gift either this past May or last May, I think.  It had two spikes in bloom at the time.  I'm not great at keeping orchids in ideal flowering conditions, but I am hopeful that this one will come to fruition - and if it does, I won't move it!!

New "Pots" and Fresh Rock

When asked if I would like to become the new owner of a hoarder's collection of old baby food jars, I couldn't have been more ecstatic!  Those jars are great for all sorts of of practical purposes, whether spray painted and bedazzled for storage solutions a la pinterest, or fill with snackage during trips or work, or, most applicably to this blog, for potting new baby plants!

Boxes of baby food jars after this post's pottings:

My first plan with these jars was to provide new homes for all of my succulent propagations which had been in mismatched clay pots and saucers and other random pots.  This involved probably 15-20 jars, not to mention I used up all of the stones I had.

Then I decided to repot my bamboo, which probably wasn't quite thriving in its unsupported "soil."  I took it out of the green pot it came in which had some tiny stones and dirty stone debris along with mostly the water storage gels.  As much as I like the gels, I really like the look of the bamboo growing in just straight polished stone as view through glass.  One day I may return to the gels, when my bamboo is on the verge of obliteration from water neglect, but for now I feel confident I can keep it watered and looking classy.

Not all of my orchids have been thriving lately.  The one and only orchid I've been able to get to re-bloom (albeit for a short while) was the one I had transplanted to a glass vase.  Since my little itty bitty orchid seems to be doing all right and has in fact sprouted a new babe, I decided to move this one into glass jar to hopefully continue its success.

And lastly, because I like to rearrange my plants so often - partly due to the ever-changing climate and lighting conditions, partly due to individual plant growth, and mainly due to my need for a fresh and interesting display - I will include a photo of my plant corner:

Note to future self: take more "before" photos...

Preparing a Succulent Cluster

Last weekend I finally got to the store to pick up some succulent potting soil.  I'd gotten some other soil recently but realized it was not really that great, plus succulent's need very drainable soil, something with sand in it.  Anyway, so I went around to my succulents and took some clippings that I'd already set over the bad soil and stuck them into individual pots in the new good soil.

For this little terrarium glass I got at the thrift store for 50 cents, I placed some stones in the bottom and set some of the succulent soil down on top.  I then planted a nice rosette from my echeveria plant.  This one already had some roots established, so I am hoping it grows nicely in this little bulbous home.

Here you can see my sedum plant has sprouted some new "branches."  I figured these would be good candidates to pluck off and attempt to propagate with.

I accidentally knocked that one petal off during this process, so I'm going to see if that thing roots as well.  This is all experimental!

I set the clippings above adjacent to a tray filled with stones and water, in which I have set all my succulent plants.  I find that with a lot of succulents, you are advised to let the clippings dry out for a couple days, then stick them in or near moist soil until they sprout roots.  By the weekend I should be in a position to stick these in potting soil.

Below you can see the whole arrangement with all the various succulents... and a baby orchid thrown in the mix.  This window faces East so they get pretty solid direct sunlight for about 5 hours.