🪴This Week In Houseplants🪴

Thaumatophyllum is out, Philodendron is in

I’ve oft lamented about the lack of research done into the tropical plants we keep as houseplants and we have another example of ‘sorry guys, turns out we were wrong’ from the botanists again.

It turns out that Thaumatophyllum isn’t botanically distinct from Philodendron, so they’re scrapped thaumatophyllum altogether. I’d link an article, but Google is currently freaking AWFUL when it comes to houseplant info (and I’m not just saying that because I’m bitter that they blacklisted Planet Houseplant, promise).

You’ll just have to take my word for it, which sounds ridiculous, but it’s basically what botanists say 😂

Realistically, this makes no difference to us. We still call snake plants sansevieria even though they’re actually dracaena, and no one’s gonna start calling Calathea Goeppertia any time soon. It’s funny seeing all the people who spend their days correcting people on Facebook melting down.

I can just imagine the scenes the (hypothetical) day it’s announced that Monstera are Philodendron 🙂

Pinterest is also currently very bad for houseplants. I searched ‘houseplant’ styling’ and the results it returned were either irrelevant or AI.

It did, however, remind me of the most important piece of houseplant styling advice I can give you. I’m woefully bad at home decor but I do have a lot of plants and don’t have much time to care for them.

Do. Not. Overdo. Hanging. Plants.

1. They’re easy to forget about if they’re above eye level

2. They’re a PITA to water for a few reasons:

   1. You have to get them down to water them*

   2. Macrame looks awesome, but if you repeatedly get it wet it gets brittle and will snap

   3. They drip all over the floor unless you dry the bottom of the pot, something I can never be arsed to do.

   4. You can only hang plants near windows or walls, which means a tonne of light or barely any. It’s fine for the plants near the window, but they dry out super quickly in brighter light so you’ll have to water them more often. If you hang them in an ideal spot, e.g. a couple of feet away from a window, you’ll end up whacking your head on them.

3. They’re a pain to water with a

   pressure sprayer, which is my preferred method. If plants can’t be watered in situe, they’re waaay less likely to be watered at all.

*The only hanging plant that can be watered in situe is my Tradescantia nanouk, and that’s just because everything seems to just…work. For example:

• Tradescantia are chill AF

• It hangs at chest height, so I can water it easily

• It’s in a ceramic pot, in a macrame hanger. I can water it without taking it out of the pot because as long as you don’t water too frequently, tradescantia don’t mind sitting in water for a day or two.

• It’s in a north-facing window, so it gets plenty of light but doesn’t dry out excessively quickly.

• It’s in my hallway/foyer so I see it every day and therefore can’t forget about its very existence.

• We don’t use our front door (are we witches? Probably) so it doesn’t get hit with a draught

There’s like one good spot for a hanging plant in my house and that’s it. I have two hoya and philodendron brasil in my (north-facing) kitchen window and they’re fine but I kind of resent having to get them down and water them. And that’s just three plants. Pinterest would have us hanging plants from every window.

I don’t mean to bash hanging plants, I just want to warn lazy people like me that they look VERY aesthetically pleasing until we ignore them for so long they shrivel up and perish. If you love spending time with your plants, go ahead and hang them up.

A lot of people like to gather their plants together and water them together in the shower/bath, in which case hanging plants will suit you fine.

For those of you that have a load of hanging plants, I’d love to hear tips re. watering them.

Ooo, I did have one thought: what about those pulley systems people use for drying laundry and herbs? Could we make a rack to hang plants from, and lower it down to water it??

Video of the week

• A Techplant experiment - this time on the whole orchids/icecubes thang

• Decluttering a houseplant collection

• A cute video on finding motivation to care for your houseplants

I’d link to articles I’ve written but, er, I haven’t written any. I’m trying to find info on variegated peace lilies and it’s a desert out there.

I’m going to endeavour to keep emailing weekly, but things are full on at the mo. I’m working full time (for someone either than myself) which isn’t something I’ve done since 2018. I’m also studying at the same time (exams at 37 - to paraphrase the Rembrandts, I never thought life was gonna be this way) AND we’ve recently got back into volunteering at the Blue Cross. I was going to write whilst Dave walked the dogs but tbh it’s a lot of fun, the dogs are cute, and it’s a great way to spend a morning.

So we shall see! The plan is to write one article, one email, and update one article per week. If anyone has any requests, shoot me a message.