|
Post by daylilydude on Dec 4, 2017 5:37:33 GMT -5
Do you grow houseplants in your home and is there any special tactics to growing them?
|
|
|
Post by pepperhead212 on Dec 4, 2017 8:30:03 GMT -5
I grow some herbs and greens hydroponically - I guess that could be considered special tactics. And my kaffir limes, curry tree, and bay laurel I bring indoors when it gets cold. Nothing special there, except I trim the limes and curry tree way back, as they get huge during the summer.
|
|
|
Post by spike on Dec 4, 2017 9:58:43 GMT -5
House plants do not like me. You can see them lean away from me in the stores >,< I can kill artificial house plants. ![:(](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/NVJWsLkJnfi619MwuIqb.png) Now I do have one window sill that I can grow herbs on and they grow nicely there. But a good rule of thumb is that if I can eat it, I can grow it. If it is pretty to just look at? It will die a slow miserable death under my control. Friends just gave me a beautiful orchid. WTH were they thinking? I made one of my other friends take it home so it would live and I could visit it.
|
|
|
Post by paulf on Dec 4, 2017 10:57:35 GMT -5
My wife is the house plant guru. Our dining room and hallways are packed with house plants during the winter months. Then in the warm months they almost all go back outside. The trick is to have a couple of humidifiers, the kind that have steam, going all the time. Some of the plants we have had for years and years. The only one that doesn't seem to do well is rosemary. It dries out no matter what.
|
|
|
Post by ladymarmalade on Dec 4, 2017 12:37:57 GMT -5
I have one very small porthos plant. It's the only houseplant I've found that can take the serious neglect I dish out.
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Dec 4, 2017 14:18:02 GMT -5
spike, I could have written what you wrote, word for word! I have only had luck with pothos and Chinese evergreen, and the occasional bromeliad. I alternate between killing with kindness, and utterly negelcting my poor houseplants. At the moment I don't have any! Once upon a time maybe 15 years ago I went on a houseplant kick. Lady ferns, pothos, peace lily, Chinese evergreen, bromeliads, snake plants, shrimp plants, and some others I don't remember any more. For a few weeks all was well. But then it was a slow-motion train wreck. It was then that I learned that pothos, peace lily, and Chinese evergreen don't need much light, and more importantly they wilt when they need water, but before they have taken any serious damage from drying out. As long as I wait until they just start to wilt to water them, they last a few years before dying. Bromeliads seem to thrive on little light and a lot of neglect with an occasional watering. I kept one alive for three years...once. Everything other house plant dies quickly and horribly in my care. I'd try cacti because they thrive on neglect...I could probably remember to water a cactus a few times a year ![(rofl)](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/LO3fz8obUsoM1TzmCkAS.png) - but I don't have enough light anywhere except on my overstuffed seedling shelves. I've managed to keep Christmas cactus and Thanksgiving cactus alive for more than a year (long enough to bloom a second time) by taking them outdoors for the warm months, but I have never managed to keep them alive long enough for a third bloom. I've overwintered citrus, pineapple, and other tropicals, but even with my short winters, they always seem very sad inside before winter is over. Another month inside and they would never make it! I'm better off sticking with outside edibles.
|
|
aqua
Pro Member
![*](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/s90c20FlZ14DDgekntx2.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/s90c20FlZ14DDgekntx2.png)
Posts: 295
Zone:: 8b9a
Favorite Vegetable:: all of them
Joined: March 2012
|
Post by aqua on Dec 4, 2017 17:21:12 GMT -5
I don't guess silk plants count....
|
|
|
Post by september on Dec 5, 2017 10:59:13 GMT -5
I used to have a lot of different kinds of house plants inside all year round, as well as plants at my office at work - ivies, African violets, cacti, various vines, hanging plants, bigger floor plants - you name it, I wanted it. It all came to a halt when we moved for the 2nd time and I started seriously gardening outdoors, there just wasn't time to spend fiddling with indoor plants, and I gave most of them away eventually. I kept just a few larger ones - a potted lemon , a lime, an orange and a hibiscus plant. Also a couple of blooming epiphyte types of cacti. They have huge weird and rather cloyingly sweet smelling blossoms. You can tell when they've opened because the smell carries at least 10 feet away. ![](https://s25.postimg.org/4bveloj5b/Cactus_Flower2.jpg)
|
|
aqua
Pro Member
![*](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/s90c20FlZ14DDgekntx2.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/3247375/images/s90c20FlZ14DDgekntx2.png)
Posts: 295
Zone:: 8b9a
Favorite Vegetable:: all of them
Joined: March 2012
|
Post by aqua on Dec 5, 2017 16:44:57 GMT -5
September that's beautiful
|
|
|
Post by paquebot on Dec 5, 2017 20:02:06 GMT -5
Not as many remain in the house as in the past. Several 6' adders tongue never go outside nor does one hanging spider plant. Otherwise there are about 35-40 which spend their summers outside and winters in the basement. Some of those are 30+ years old. This year has two large pots with carrots. Can't think of a better way of storing them.
Reminds me of an episode of Barney Miller. Ron Harris had to spent the night with Arthur Dietrich. Next day he told Barney that Art grows thing in his apartment. Barney replied that lots of people have houseplants. "Wheat?"
Martin
The truth is more important than the facts.
|
|
|
Post by Laura_in_FL on Dec 8, 2017 18:39:46 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by Gianna on Dec 8, 2017 20:31:50 GMT -5
Years ago I had lots of houseplants, but in the end they all died because of the indoor drought. I still have plants in the house, but now they are either germinating seeds, or microgreens.
|
|
|
Post by september on Dec 8, 2017 22:33:04 GMT -5
Thanks, Aqua and Laura! That plant has bloomed maybe three times in all the years I've had it! The blossoms look like alien growths before they open, just weird, but beautiful too. Cactus blossoms are so worth it!
Gianna - love the "indoor drought" description. Eternal water chores were one reason I reduced my plant collection. I got tired of carrying gallons of water around the house. I even bought an indoor mini watering hose. It was basically just an long aquarium air hose that screwed onto my kitchen sink faucet, long enough to reach into my living room, with a long nozzle end to reach deep into foliage. Would have worked, if the water pressure would not have kept blasting the shallow screw fitting off the faucet every so often. And with large plants, it was faster to just carry and dump a gallon rather than wait for enough water through the thin little hose. I miss my house full of plants, but not the work.
|
|