This Week In Houseplants
I finally got an Obliqua!
I went plant shopping! And bought plants!
I had intended to buy a single Fittonia and stick it in a kilner jar to see if I could make a cute but extremely cheap terrarium. The garden centre had other plans for me.
(Should I change that to ‘other plants for me?’ Would that be funny pun??)
One Begonia, one Fittonia, one Monstera Obliqua, one Ficus Moonshine, one Hypoestes, one fern, and one terrarium later, I left the garden centre.
My purse was only £43.43 lighter. Wild.
I’m all about low maintenance house plants, and terrariums can be SUPER low maintenance, because they have their own little ecosystem going. The water evaporates from the soil, hangs about for a bit as water vapour, and then condenses and trickles back into the soil. Awesome.
This isn’t a sealed terrarium, so I will have to water occasionally, but maybe only every few months. I’m currently adding a tiny bit of water every few days until the substrate is perfectly…not wet, but also not moist. We don’t want rot.
I didn’t add any extra substrate other than some leca (a couple of handfuls). This is just to protect the soil from becoming mud in the event of accidental overwatering.
You can use anything to lift the soil off the bottom and have somewhere for excess water to collect. Gravel is fine.
‘But you told us not to use rocks in the bottom of plant pots!’ I hear you cry. And yeah, I did. I wrote an entire article on why you shouldn’t. It’s exactly 1400 words long, which is quite pleasing.
BUT
There are a couple of differences between a terrarium and a plant pot:
You can see the water level in a terrarium. If the water level is touching the soil you need get rid of it (maybe go in with a turkey baster?)
You water terrariums completely differently. With plant pots, you want to thoroughly soak the soil and have it dry out pretty quickly. With a terrarium, you pick plants that like to stay consistently moist, but never let the soil get wet. Go in with a spray bottle or pressure sprayer.
By the way, if you’re still on the fence about buying a pressure sprayer, I have an article here explaining my devotion to them.
If you could all go subscribe to and binge my (admittedly rubbish but just leave it running in the background!) YouTube channel I can become rich, quit my job and produce a line of aesthetically pleasing pressure sprayers.
I’ll also devote my life to finding an environmentally friendly way of getting rid of thrips without having to put in any effort.
ANYWAY
I’m pretty pleased with my terrarium. It took about half an hour, documented in this video:
Does anyone know how to take photos of glass without it reflecting? I feel like I’m missing something obvious.
You’ll notice from the thumbnail above that my Aglaonema Pictum Tricolor made it into the terrarium. I just wanted to see if it would do better in there. It does take the budget over £50 BUT it also detracts from the overall aesthetic so I don’t think I’m cheating.
An article for propagation perfectionists
This is 100% NOT my style (I’m very laissez-faire with my propagating - if they make it, they make it), BUT I came across this PDF in my morning reading.
I’ve never heard of the publication - it looks to be for industry professionals rather than plebs like me - but this article on propagation caught my eye.
If you love to min-max your propagating then you might find some useful nuggets of information in here:
I tried to find a link to the PDF so you wouldn’t have to download it, but it’s disappeared from the website. Mysterious. Link to the website here.
A cute house tour with plants
This house tour on Cup of Jo is features a magnificent maidenhair fern.
This house is awesome but also really real. Some of the plants look incredibly and some are definitely suffering 😂 like all CoJ house tours it seems like a real person lives there. There’s also a westie called Argus.
Oh, and if someone could identify the stick-y succulents in the bathroom windowsill I’d be very grateful.
Let’s finish with some photos of the plants I saw but didn’t buy in the garden centre (it was Dean’s in York btw):
I’d never seen a Philodendron Strawberry Shake before (bottom row, middle). I’m really not a fan - it’s really…ill-looking colour (disclaimer: I’m colourblind, so if you think it’s a nice colour you’re 100% right and I’m wrong).
I’ll identify them as well as I can (top to bottom, left to right)
Variegated Alocasia frydek
Variegated Monstera adansonii
Monstera esqueleto
Golden Pothos
Philodendron gloriosum
Philodendron Florida ghost
Monstera dubia
Monstera dubia’s creepy aerial roots
Alocasia camoflage (£59.99)
Variegated Monstera Peru (these aren’t Monstera, they’re epipremnum)
Variegated schefflera
Monstera obliqua (£10.99)
Some kind of sundew - these are like £7.99 but they’re tricky to keep. Succumb to pests ironically easily and very picky about humidity and water quality. They’re one of those plants that suffer in silence so you’ll get a good few months where you think it’s doing well and then *boom* dead.
Aglaonema pictum tricolor
Begonia rex of some kind
Philodendron Florida beauty
Philodendron strawberry shake (£74.99)
Monstera Thai constellation
I forgot to get prices for most of them 😐 I do remember that the Dubia wasn’t for sale though. I think the big Gloriosum was like £650 😐😐😐
They also had Philodendron Spiritus Sancti babies for SEVENTEEN POUNDS NINETY NINE. I didn’t take a picture because they honestly just look like, erm, leaves. I have zero interest in buying plants simply because they’re rare, so they’re one of those plant trends I truly do not understand.
They also had this fella:
Not one for me (especially not for £99.99) but I kinda get the appeal.
Have a great week!