Polk Dots Enter Hibernation Mode

This may be the second winter for some of these plants.  I am finding that when the nights get colder and sunlight is fleeting, these plants will bunker down into very dense, low, furry clusters until the winter passes.  Sometimes the long stems from the summer's growth will brown and drop all of its leaves, and sometimes they will hang onto their color and leaves.  However, with this plant, it is so stringy in shape and fickle with its leaves, that it is quite messy.  So, I have decided to prune them back even though some of the stems were still green.

Below is a "before" photo where you can see the stringy-ness of the plants and how much of the green is long since gone.  What you don't see is the pile of wilted leaves and blooms that have drifted into a pile on the floor - such a messy plant!

The stem on the right has a lot of green left on it yet, so I left it on for now.  Additionally I don't think it quite had the furball mass of dense foliage at its base like the others do, so I should probably leave something attached to help it generate energy.

Ugh, this just looks like a gangly mess.  But you can see the short dense furballs at the bottom quite nicely.  I'm not sure why they have almost no green in them, could be just an energy conservation sort of thing for the winter.

Some of the stems had furball growth at the ends.  I am taking this as a sign that I should experiment in propagation.  I'm snipping off some of these ends and setting them in water.  I don't know if they'll take to that strategy of propagation, but we'll find out soon enough.

Here's another furball at the end of a long stem:

...and the after shot!  Like I said, a couple stems were still quite green, so I let them stay to help feed the plant during this draining season.  It looks much better, although that begonia in the middle is driving me nuts.  I think it just hates that stinking plastic pot.  I'll see if I can find something better for it this weekend.

Here's a shot of the three lucky clippings that may one day grow into their own little clusters.

I've set them in a shot glass of tap water, making sure no leaves are in the water and attempting to get as much stem submerged as possible.

Another angle..

I'll check in on these every couple weeks and hopefully will have something good to report soon!

African Violet Blooms

If you remember this post, for awhile I was worried I had inadvertently destroyed the budding capacity of my African violet by watering it from the top down and keeping it in lower lighting conditions.  However, this fall I have renewed hope that I have a green thumb after all!  Buds started sprouting up several weeks ago (which had happened back in the summer too, but they never bloomed).

It may be tough to see, but the foliage has filled in quite nicely from where I had removed some "propagation" leaves earlier in the year.  Of the four leaves I snipped and attempted to propagate, one remains and is perhaps on its last gasp.

Below you can see additional buds gearing up to bloom!

Below is an overhead shot, trying to show you the filled foliage.

The photo below doesn't do justice, but this purple bloom is like fluorescent and almost an iridescent color display.

If you were wondering what I mean by watering "top down" or "bottom up," typically you water a plant by pouring or sprinkling water over the soil.  The water trickles down through the soil and is absorbed by the roots, with any excess water draining out to a saucer, trough or collecting in a stone base layer.  Watering from the bottom up, you either set a terra-cotta pot housing your African violet in a second pot which has water in it, allowing the water to absorb through the terra-cotta into your soil and roots - OR - you do what I have done and doesn't require a specialty pot... you just pour water into the drainage trough and let it wick up into the roots.  When the soil is really dry, I'll come back and add water to the trough a second or third time.  Since it takes me awhile to make the rounds when watering all my plants, I can usually do this one first, and like 10th and then last - in other words, I don't pour, sit and wait and pour again.  This is not a bad watering strategy for other really thirsty plants.  Sometimes if a pot is totally dried out and you go to water it, the soil is too hard to absorb any water so it leaks right out into your trough (more than you expected which leads to crazy overflow and a mess).  So instead, if the plant is clearly mega dried out, I may water the trough first, let it absorb and on my second pass come in and water top-down.

Finally Repotting the Jade Jewel

So due to perhaps not quite having the perfect pot, I realized recently that I still had my jade jewel "on display" in just a plastic sleeve type of pot.  Since the plant has demonstrated significant growth since I bought it, and I had picked up a few pots at a yard sale late this summer, I figured today might be a good day to repot it.

After gently separating the soil from the pot walls, I was able to slip out the root mass.  As you can see below, it was probably will appreciate the slightly larger pot I put it into.

Below you can see the new pot is probably an inch or so greater in diameter than the previous pot.  Not a huge step up, but at least now it has a classier home!  As per usual, there is a stone base in the pot to help with drainage (not pictured).

To fill in the void of the new diameter, I used some "all purpose" potting soil I found on sale at a local hardware store.  It smelled a little "fresh" so I decided to mix in some peat moss, perlite, vermiculite and bark.  The bark I threw in mainly in an effort to match the mix the plant came with - it's not the same kind of bark, but maybe it'll have some of the same nutrients.

And ta da!  New pot in place.  Today I put up some of that "window cling wrap" product, in the hopes of creating a more comfortable wintry environment for both me and my little babes.

Spider Plant "babies"

A couple weeks ago a coworker offered me the opportunity to pluck as many spider "babies" as I wanted from his office-dwelling mama spider.  Not wanting to be too greedy, I snatched up five!  After about 2 weeks semi-submerged in water, most of the babies started to show some distinct root growth.  I decided to just go ahead and pot them all in some fresh soil.

It's kind of hard to see on this surface but the image below is a close-up of some of this "significant" root growth I observed.

The baby below doesn't really have any noticeable root growth, but I'm sure it will root eventually and perhaps the moist soil will be a more appropriate environment to foster that kind of growth anyway.

Using the new standard procedure, I rinsed some river rock, laid some down in the cleaned out baby food jars and loaded up with a custom blend of soil.  I think I used some new and some "old" cactus blend soil (which contains sand) and some perlite, in a ratio of about 6 or 7 to 1.

And here they are all lined up in their new abodes!  Since there wasn't much of a root or base for these little rascals, they are kind of just sitting on top of the soil.  Hopefully that's good enough and they can nestle themselves in.  I figure "in nature" the little babies dangle off of the mama until they root down presumably in place.

I should note that these have been kept in the office, I brought them home only to pot them.  They are back at the office, which doesn't have any direct sunlight, and is actually quite dark other than the subtle desk lighting I have in place as well as some bleak overhead lighting.  I have been assured that these suckers are resilient even in the most doubtful interior environments... we'll see!

...And Other Fall Transitions

My African violet is coming back around!  Here you can see the first bloom has opened up, while several others lie in waiting...

 Here the mama gerber daisy is showing signs of wear.  Maybe it was from the dozen or so times I had let this go underwatered to the point its flowers and leaves would droop down to the window sill.  Maybe it was from putting out so many flowers.  Or maybe these things just don't grow back.  But as you can see, this baby mama is on its last stretch!

My Thanksgiving cactus is gearing up for a display - check out all those buds!  (I recently learned that Christmas cactuses have rounded greenery and bloom around Christmas.  These more common Thanksgiving cactuses have the spiky greenery and bloom around Thanksgiving and Easter.  I'll continue to call this a Christmas cactus, though, since that's how most people call all of them and it has a pleasant alliteration.)

The Petunia Experiment

Well, after a few weeks, it looks like I am down to one server per pot.  Despite my efforts to pluck all the buds before they bloomed, a lot of the clippings ended up blooming, and by that point it was kind of useless for me to pluck them since the plant had already expended the energy to push the flower open.  You understand what I mean.

Caladium Makes a Comeback

I've been checking in on my house plants a little less regularly the past week or so.  I was ever so delighted to see the latest new growth on my caladium, however!  Here are some snapshots:

You'll notice in the first photo, my one transplant/propagant/rescue plant has an entirely deep green leaf.  It just looks so odd on this plant!  I wonder if that's just a growing glitch during this regrowth phase, or if it is the result of not getting enough sunlight.  I actually wonder if it is more related to the tubular of that particular stem.  Upon closer inspection, that tubular is shoved right up against the glass and the new leaves are growing in a curved fashion as they round the lip of the glass jar.

Other than that oddity, the caladium plants appear to be doing very well!  They aren't as huge as they were when I bought them, but I have great anticipation for their future growth!