Flowering Aloe Plant

I must have gotten this aloe plant back in Davis, when we were living in an apartment. That puts at 10 years old. When we moved into a Duplex, I planted in the ground, since I thought it would be happier there. It was.

After living in the ground for two years, I did the unthinkable. I dug it up and took it with me when we moved. Surprisingly, it survived just fine and started growing some new leaves. Three years after that, we moved into our condo we are in now and it took off like a crazy plant!

I have transplanted it twice in three years, and also trimmed off about a third and gave it to a friend. It has already out grown the pot again and seems like I need to chop off another section. You can't even see the damn pot under it anymore!

The craziest thing is that since we have lived here, it flowers about twice a year. One very long stalk starts growing and sprouts small, tubular bell-like orange flowers on a spike. the tallest it has gotten is about 4 1/2 tall.

It just started to sprout again and it is always out of the oldest part of the plant. I think it is trying to tell me to re pot it again, so I guess I should put that on the list of things to do.

The Little Spruce Tree - Epic Fail!

My sister-in-law got this little spruce tree as a Christmas present a few years ago and thought I might want it. (You know, after I keep writing these stories, I wonder why I would ever have to buy plants. People just keep giving them to me!)

Anyhoo. It lived in a very small Terra cotta pot, which I had a hard time keeping moist enough and sometimes it would have dead spots on it.

I finally transplanted it into a glazed ceramic pot which it loved. Since spring of this year it has been totally happy! Super soft, very blue, growing like mad. I was so proud! It was turning into a perfect little Christmas tree and I had planned on bringing it in for the holidays.

Then I went on vacation. My mom was watching our place and watering the plants. I don't know what happened. I usually run my hand across it when I go out to water, it has such a feathery feel to it. When I came home, my hand just crunched against it. Super dry, super dead.

The main branches are still alive, but all the little square leaves are toast. I rubbed all the dead stuff off and am hoping I can get it to come back to life. If I had to guess, I think it actually got over watered. What a bummer.

Here it is at the beginning of spring, it grew to twice this size before it died.

And here it is now. Boo.

Bird of Paradise

So, my mom bought this bird of paradise plant way back in 2002. It was in a little 6" pot, and it lived on my porch and I watered it every once in a while.

When we moved into our condo, I replanted it into a tall Terra cotta pot that was about 8" at the top. Not a huge move, but better than nothing! It live on my porch and looked very happy. After a good long while, I decided to transplant it again. To my surprise, it was so root bound, with those super thick and fleshy roots, that I had to break the pot to get it out!

Lesson learned: it wants to be replanted more often.

I was in a 3-gallon pot for a while, then upgraded to the 5-gallon pot. That made it really happy and last winter, it finally flowered for the first time in 6 years!

You can usually see the new leaves coming in, they sort of have a spiral look to them, and then unfold after a while.

I was outside tonight, finally giving my plants some love and noticed something that didn't quite look like a leaf. No spiral, more like little inverted Vs. I think I have two flowers brewing.

There was creeping thyme in the pot with it, but was sucking up too much water, so I took it out about a month ago. I think that is was finally made it try to bloom since it wasn't fighting the herbs anymore.

So, I guess we will see what happens! I will be very excited to have it bloom again. Cross your fingers that I don't screw it up before then.

The Giant Ficus

Ficus is actually a genus name for the whole entire fig family. What kind of ficus do I have? The rescued kind. It looks like every other Ficus you see in the houseplant area of Home Depot.

This was another rescue plant from a zoo keeper at work back in the winter of 2005. From what I remember, this tree had belonged to her grandmother, and she was trying to keep it alive, but their house just wasn't getting enough light. She had heard about the African Violet that I saved, and I had taken some other plants over the years, so she approached me.

She said it was about 5 feet tall, and since we had just bought a condo with a 2-story living room and tons of windows, I knew it would fit.

We loaded the tree in my Volvo and I took it home. When it was finally in the living room, my boyfriend looked at it and asked me what the hell it was....It looked bad. Really bad.

From one side, it was covered in leaves, so much so, that the main branches had bent over and were growing toward the ground. The other side? Completely dead...really dead.

First thing I did was water and fertilize it. Next step - trim the hell out of it. I took off the first two feet of branches on the trunk, cut off the branches that were growing back down, trimmed the whole front side, and carefully cut all the leafless branches that were actually dead. It look like a badly shorn sheep with a couple of legs missing, but I was determined.

When people came over they always commented, "Nice tree", in the most sarcastic tones they could muster...it looked like crap. This video is the only proof of how crappy it was - look behind the cat...

The crazy thing is that every Ficus I have ever had, has dropped it's leaves in protest every time you did something wrong. This Ficus barely ever does. Maybe 6 leaves a years, it's really weird. So, soon enough, it started growing new leaves, and tiny branches sprouted out of the dead side.

I took a few years, but now it looks almost perfect. There is still a small thin area, but unless you are looking for it, you don't notice. It is way over 7' tall now, and I trim it down about twice a year. It's one damn happy Ficus.