This Week in Houseplants

A plant that looks like a turtle, anyone?

What a glorious day!

We’ve had our wind-ravaged fence replaced this week so we can finally sit in the garden. I tried to take some pictures of the plant stand but…it’s bright. So bright.

Here’s the Verrucosum - it was cut back to the stem and totally leafless a couple of months ago and she’s doing so well!

Clearly the Philodendron pink is extremely jealous because look at it muscling into the picture.

The PPP is doing…fine. Growing fast but, as always, but the leaves always look, well, like she makes a massive palava of releasing every leaf. If you look at the petiole of the big leaf at the top left, you can see a bump at the bottom - that’s gonna get more and more pronounced until I have to step in. If I don’t step in, it’ll likely end up snapping.

I’m ready to be hurt again so treated myself to a Monstera Dubia. Like spider plants, they’re SO EASY to grow IF you NEVER let them dry out too much and keep thrips away from them.

She’s not rooted into that coir pole so I put her on a freaking HUGE Kratise pole. I’ts not flat like a traditional Dubia support but it’s still pretty wide.

Hoya kerrii is doing spendidly. Absolutely love the bushy growth pattern. 10/10, no notes.

I don’t want to jinx it, but the Cebu blue underneath the kerrii (in front of the tetrasperma) is doing suuuper well. There are still thrips knocking about but…when isn’t there?

BTW, the blue sticky traps are yet to catch a single thrips.

This Hoya krohniana is…not well. I took some cutting, removed the leaves (be careful - they leak latex copiously) and put it in the prop box. I’ve kept the bottom of the plant just in case but I’m not confident.

The Monstera adansonii is trying so hard to get growing but this is the source of the thrips so I keep cutting it back. I’m determined not to chuck it (more as an experiment than anything else). The thrips will not win.

Look at this:

Do we hate it? Love it? I’m struggling to form an opinion. I saw it in Deans Garden Centre last week and can safely say I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s a Labisia turtle back. Good job, plant naming people.

I’m getting reaaally fed up with the lack of movement on the Thai. She has everything shes needs. Ample light, decent humidity, perfectly watered and yet no leaves. Just these absolutely spectacular roots:

You can see a new aerial root coming in at the top of the pic.

The green stuff is oxygenating weed btw. The stuff in the bottom of the tank is FLuval stratum. She has a pole after someone suggested she wants support.

She’s going back into soil in a long pot and we’ll see if she wants to crawl.

That’s this afternoon’s project so I’ll update next week.

I haven’t opened my prop box in a couple of weeks so I got a couple of surprises when I went to put the Hoya cuttings in.

First we have…something that’s self seeded. I think perhaps parsley, as that’s seeded itself all round the garden. As to how it got into a sealed prop box, I really couldn’t say.

We have leaves! I think it’s a verrucosum (no idea what the ther one is), which is VERY exciting because I’ve never been able to root one before.

Substack informs me I’ve reached the email length limit, so I must leave you. Have an awesome week!