This Week In Houseplants

Stop with the banana peel teas

What is it with tabloids and terrible houseplant advice?

They’re still on about the air-purifying properties of peace lilies even though I’m pretty sure we all know that houseplants have a negligible effect on air quality.

I’m not saying that banana peel tea isn’t great for plants. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t put eggshells in the soil. I’m not even saying that you shouldn’t use coffee grounds on your plants.

They may be awesome for your plants, but it won’t matter because they’ll attract flies (both fruit and fungus) and you’ll get so annoyed by not being able to have a lovely glass of wine on a Friday night without having a fly chilling in it.

Nothing beats fungus gnats when it comes to being incredibly annoying. At least thrips stick to bugging plants.

I’ve tried several actual houseplant fertilisers, and they don’t tend to attract flies. They do cost more than free, but I think £8 on fertiliser that’ll last you a couple of years is worth it. It’ll be cheaper than all the sticky traps you’ll have to buy.

(Very small) Plant haul

Does two plants count as a haul?

Especially since I only took a photo of one of them.

The picture-less plant is only of those teeny-tiny orchids from Tesco for £6. It’s extremely cute. I’ll be desoiling it and keeping it in a glass like my other one because they seem to like it!

I FINALLY got my paws on an Aglaonema Pictum Tricolor. I resigned myself to never being able to have one of these because they are incredibly hard to get hold of ethically.

I wrote an article about them here, but basically, they’re poached a lot. Tissue culture had yielded crap results so that wasn’t an option UNTIL NOW:

£12.99.

Bargain.

They are apparently NOT as easy to grow as other aglaonema but since this is a well-behaved tissue culture plant, perhaps it’ll be ok?? I hope???

There was also this super cool Schismatoglottis sp. ex Thailand that’s got a similar camo thing going on:

These are also known to be divas.

There was also this really cool mature Monstera Dubia:

My dubia has done spectacularly badly this year and has zero leaves. Thrips seem to love it, and I don’t blame them - it’s an extremely cool plant.

Cool videos I found

Anyone use ollas for watering plants? We’re not short of rain in the UK so I’ve never really had to use things like this but it’s a pretty cool concept:

I only have a tiny garden and we dump out all our aquarium water in the two raised beds which, coupled with the incessant rain, keeps everything well hydrated.

Terracotta watering spikes do seem like a great way of using water efficiently though - it’s a method that’s been used for thousands of years because it’s cheap, simple, and effective. What more could you want (other than someone else to do it for you)?

I have zero intention of making a lava rock thing, but this video is the closest thing to plant ASMR I’ve seen.

Plant labels

Talk to me about plant labels. Do you use them? Hate them? Love them?

I find that plant labels tend to be a bit wasteful for me, because I…know what all my plants are. There’s just not a lot of point.

HOWEVER, I really like the look of those punched copper labels.

You can buy them on Etsy but I dunno…hitting something with a hammer to make it aesthetically pleasing is something that really appeals to me.

I could just get a few! Or at least one for Smaug.

Thoughts? Should I start a business selling copper and aluminium plant labels??

IS THIS HOW I MAKE MY MILLIONS??

I think I’ll leave it there this week, and see if I can source some copper.

Have an awesome weekend!