Well, happy 2019!
The busyness of our life has only increased, not decreased, however, one huge life change is that I actually left my job and am taking some time off, so maybe, just maybe, if weather and pests cooperate, I could have plenty of time to create spectacular gardens! {
highly skeptical}
Meanwhile, here's a brief update on the indoor plants...
They're not going well.
Oh, the regular houseplants are fine and, in fact, are only increasing. When I left my job I brought home THREE additional smallish plants plus my large and marvelous fairy garden.
Our house is definitely looking more jungle-like all the time.
But the plants I brought in?
Welp - the avocados were beautiful!
But quickly struggled when I brought them in, especially the largest one.
I had it in a corner and had to move it next to the window after a couple weeks because it was looking really sad.
When I moved it, it lost 80% of its leaves!
Any small new growth that had started shriveled and it is hanging on by a thread.
My only theory on the large one is that it had started forming a ball of roots out of the hole even though I had put it on a tile to avoid it rooting directly into the dirt. It created it's own dirt and root ball that I had to slightly tear up when bringing it inside. Did that do too much damage to it?
No idea, but in any case, it's certainly accidentally dying.
If it survives the winter, I'll put it back out and see if that revives it. If not, I may just plant the darn thing directly into the ground to experiment if it could survive. (I'm sure it all depends on us getting a mild winter and such.)
We shall see.
It may just be a grand, "Thus far shall you go" - or, you know, thus high shall you grow or whatever. I'll accidentally grow avocado trees, get to enjoy their increased growth for 3-4 years, then let them rest in peace in the county compost truck after stealing their pot for the next round.
 |
| (It's hiding behind the speckled one that stays inside all the time) |
The smaller one has lost a bunch of leaves and was looking sad too, but seems to be stabilizing a bit.
I often feel like the avocado trees are the rough and mangled, scar-faced, weather-worn mountain men who venture into the big city and meet the smooth, polished, sleek and clean ones that have never had to work a day in their life. You can just tell the ones who haven't been outside exposed to weather, leaf rot, and bugs chewing holes!
The other sad bit is the clippings I had.
I only managed to grab 1 or 2 coleus clippings before they died, but thankfully, my former-work-friend / former-garden-partner (so with no shared company and garden plot, now that makes her just my friend...? that seems so short and undescriptive and uncharacteristically not-verbose for me), is as unabashed as I am and she approached her neighbor about stealing some clippings from his coleus, sweet potato vines, and other annuals he uses for groundcover. She watches him clean them up at the end every year and so decided to ask him about grabbing some clippings before he did...he was most obliging!
And she shared some with me!
Into the water jars they went and the roots exploded right away! They were mighty impressive!
In the midst of the busyness, I did finally take time to plant them in dirt.
Colors!!!
And that's when it all went wrong.
This is one where I really do believe it wasn't my fault!
They sat by the door where I always put my seedlings, so other than it being one of the dreariest years ever, it wasn't lack of sunlight.
And I was really regular with watering! They seemed to dry out incredibly quickly, though, so I watered multiple times a week when I noticed them dry.
Not sure what happened, but they slowly shriveled away and now I only have one left! :-(
(The ones at the top left are indoor plant clippings still in water that I needed to replant...so at least they survived!)
But in a happy news, the Christmas cactus bloomed!
Which is funny because I didn't exactly help it along. (Now that I think of it,
have I ever? :-/ )
Oh I stopped watering it in the fall with the intention of putting it in a dark room...problem is the "dark room" I usually use is the downstairs guest room which we've moved into while renovating ours. Sooooo...
Weeks later and it was looking real sad and I realized that I wasn't going to be able to give it the attention it would need to bloom, so I started watering it again and that was that.
Then, just in time for Christmas, it popped out a few, slightly sad, but still pretty flowers!
Yay, accidental blooming!
Here's to 2019 being the year of the plant!
I'm not holding my breath.
