This Week In Houseplants

Repotting, props boxes, and growing plants in water

I’d been toying with the idea of making a video about how to keep peace lilies in water when this thread came up on Reddit that perfectly encapsulates their attitude:

(Why yes, I did take a photo of my iPad with my phone rather than taking a screenshot.

It was early.)

The phrase I’m referring to is in the middle ‘lives like it wants to die.’

So many plants live like this, which is great for me, who has wild ebbs and flows when it comes to plant neglect. They look awful, but won’t actually cross the bridge into the afterlife.

I was so close to filming the video on hydroponic peace lilies - I even bought a vase for it.

BUT THEN

I realised that all this shows is that you can plonk a lily in a vase of water. Wouldn’t it be better to show the whole process?

Delayed gratification is not my style. I like to film, edit and upload in MAX three days.

This peace lily project will likely take months.

Long story short I now have a list of thirty plants I’m going to document over the next growing season.

This afternoon I’ll film the peace lily going into the water. I’m just going to prop one of my existing ones - it seems silly to go out and buy ANOTHER peace lily when I already have two sizeable specimens.

I’ve seen so many reels of people putting their lilies in water but there are two things that never get mentioned:

1. If you put the base in the water it’ll likely rot

2. Algae will be your constant companion

The first issue I believe is maybe just wishful thinking? Or maybe they don’t intend to keep their lily in water forever?

I ALWAYS assume that leaving any green bits of the plant submerged can induce rot. I’m not saying that it will happen in 100% of cases but it’s…likely to happen over time.

Algae I just don’t think is sexy enough to discuss. If you’re trying to sell keeping lilies in water in order to get eyeballs on your content you don’t want to put people off with the threat of algae.

My boyfriend has kept fish for well over twenty years and trust me, there is no easy way to get rid of algae in a transparent container of water. Algae requires light and water to grow (because it’s a plant!) and it is VERY good at growing prolifically in surprisingly low amounts of either. Whatever you use to get rid of the algae will kill the plant MUCH faster.

The situation can be rectified by keeping your plant in water but in an opaque vessel but for some reason people are NOT open to this. Being able to see the roots is the whole thing.

By the way, algae isn’t harmful to houseplants as long as it’s not so thick that they’re competing for nutrients (this is unlikely to happen unless you refuse to EVER change the water, in which case it’ll be lack of oxygen that gets your plant).

Let’s move on.

I’m also repotting my Thai. Someone commented on an old video that it might need something to stabilise is (it’s in water and doesn’t grow leaves more than one per year). I do agree BUT if I try to grow that thing in soil it immediately rots.

The solution? Stealing an old fish tank off my boyfriend, gluing a plank of wood to the back and…waiting and seeing. Let’s see if I can get more than one leaf a year (the roots look incredible though).

That’s some aquatic soil I’m putting in the bottom because…Dave had some left from one of his planted tanks. The sand is not necessary. I just didn’t have anywhere else for it go and it won’t hurt.

I don’t care if it looks extremely rough. If I don’t execute my ideas asap they risk being forgotten about for years.

I’m also setting up a couple of prop boxes. It’s technically a bit early BUT I like my props to be potted up and well established before the end of the growing season. Last year Dave bought some muffin boxes (I didn’t know they were a thing either) for something fish related so I’ve commandeered them:

I don’t need the blue inserts but, again, if I take them out I’ll have to find somewhere else for them to live so I’ll just add the moss to them as is.

My plants have been ravaged by thrips over the winter and I’m determined to bring them back to full strength this year (whilst documenting the process). My Monstera adansonii, P. verrucosum and various others (including the Tradescantia Nanouk my niece gave me - oops) are entirely leafless, so I’ll prop the bare stems and when the time comes, pot all the props together for a full and aesthetic look that is, alas, entirely different to how they’d grow in the wild.

I’m also propping my Amydrium Medium Silver but the runners on that are due ENTIRELY to it’s predilection for growing runners over leaves.

I have a care guide here that talks about little else.

I’m going to be adding blue sticky traps to my plants to see if that can catch the adult thrips. I use beneficial bugs for the larvae but you need two different predatory bug species for the various thrips lifecycle stages and unfortunately adult thrips predators also eat the baby thrips predators. Nightmare. If those blue sticky traps help eradicate the adults that will be a huge help.

If anyone has a plant that they’re struggling with, or that they want to see grown to maturity leave me a comment. I need you for accountability.

I’ll put pictures of the newly situated peace lily and Thai in next week’s newsletter, and let you know if I’ve caught any thrips.

Have a great week!