Six on Saturday – March 10th – houseplants

Last week’s snow has finally melted (although there’s still some on top of the hills), but the cold has been replaced by wet and windy weather…. so this is an indoor version ofย Six on Saturday.

  1. Back in 2001 (I think) a family friend let me have a couple of cacti. They really were a bit large to keep on the windowsill, but a small piece broke off it as it was being moved, so I put it into a pot. As it grew, and more pieces were accidentally knocked off, I added them to pots as well, and ended up with quite a few! The larger cacti in this pot already had roots when I planted them, but the smaller ones had no roots at all…. I’m hoping this will eventually be a mound of cacti, but I might have a few years to wait before the little ones catch up!
  2. I tend to go for more ‘structural’ plants than flowering ones. I’m not sure what type this particular plant is, but it looks a bit like a Yucca…. possibly?
  3. I had a Tradescantia “Wandering Jew” many years ago, but once it started wandering, the stems became so brittle they snapped far too easily. A relative spotted this plant at a garden centre and thought it might work on my windowsill, without realising it was a Tradescantia, albeit a non-wandering variety!
  4. On to something with a little more novelty value, and a succulent with a difference. This one has been painted with a glow-in-the-dark paint, although it either doesn’t get enough light (unlikely given that it’s by a south facing window), or it’s not quite dark enough at night for it to glow.
  5. Up next is the “Flapjack plant” (Kalanchoe thyrsiflora, according to a quick google search), which didn’t seem to like being on the windowsill (or was suffering from a lack of water!). I moved it onto the bookcase next to my dragon trees in the hope that it would prefer that location.
  6. And speaking of dragon trees, here’s the largest (and newest) dragon tree (Dracaena) to make its home on the top of the bookcase. I did have one for 17 years, but when I tried repotting it last year, I realised that half the roots were stuck in concrete-like soil at the bottom of the pot…. it didn’t approve of the repotting, so this is the replacement plant.

    I would’ve taken a photo of the trunk as well, but the plant was slightly too big for the decorative pot I had, so it’s perched half in the pot with some A4 paper wrapped around it to stop the soil falling out! ….anyone know of a decent place to get some decorative outer pots (with no holes in the base) for houseplants?

Don’t forget to check out the Propagator’s Six on Saturday and read through the comments section for more blogs to check out!

6 thoughts on “Six on Saturday – March 10th – houseplants”

  1. What a lovely variety you have amongst your houseplants. Some wonderful foliage there. If you’ve a local garden centre, they should have decorative pots w/o holes & reasonably priced. There are also online shops that deal in home decor & also have houseplant pots w/o holes. They might be a bit pricier. And there’s always eBay or Etsy. Good luck in your search.

    1. Thanks ๐Ÿ™‚ I do sometimes have a few flowering plants in there, but most are foliage ones (it saves the need to dead-head the plants)

      I’ve managed to get a few outer pots from the garden centre and Homebase, but this particular plant is in a larger pot…. and looking at the websites, everywhere that I’ve found (so far) only sells decorative pots that are smaller than the pot I need to put in it.

      I hadn’t thought of ebay or etsy though, that might work! ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Thanks ๐Ÿ™‚ I did add a packet of cacti seeds to my seed order, so that’s going to be an interesting experiment (I’ve never attempted growing cacti from seed before!)

  2. I have a dim memory of going to Germany when I was about 15 and bringing back a bit of that very cactus. It’s still going strong, 50 years on!

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