Fern in the Urn

Kangaroo Fern: Phymatosorus diversifolius.

When we first moved into our condo, my mom and I went shopping at the wholesale florist cause it's cheap and fun. We went a little crazy and ended up with lots of stuff including medium sized banana plants (which I overwatered and killed, by they by) and a great little Kangaroo fern in about a 6 inch pot.

I've never had great luck with ferns, because I can't keep that evenly moist soil they love so much. But this one was on the leathery side, not the soft feathery side so I figured, what the hell? And then I found a kick ass, red ceramic urn that would fit perfectly on this weird little square of railing in our stairwell to the loft.

So began the Fern in the Urn.

It gets really great morning light through this otherwise useless round window no one can reach, and after almost killing it a couple of times I figured out a way to get that evenly moist soil. Two tricks really.

1) I have a jug of water that lives right below it and I water it every time I go upstairs to work. Of course, if I'm not working up there it starts to die.

2) I bought this super cheesy LED water sensor for $8. It flashes when the soil is drying out.

Between these two things, it's been growing like mad for 4 years now. It sends out little fuzzy feelers, trying to grow more, so I trim those about one a year. I think I should probably transplant it sometime, but it's doing really well, so I keep not doing that.

It's pretty gratifying to keep a fern alive and I love that it is taking over our stairwell!

Pumpkin Seeds Sprouting

This is so weird.

I carve pumpkins every year, it's just tons of fun. And I also make one for the Zoo to use for our Halloween event. This year, I am doing it early to use as a photo shoot piece.

So, I am digging out the innards and find a green leaf. I stared at it and was trying to figure out how it got in with my pumpkin guts. Then I found more.

About a half dozen seeds had sprouted inside the pumpkin! They looked like bean sprouts. Have you ever seen this before?

Patience is a virtue...

I've had this plant for probably ten years now, but I had no idea it flowered. I've long since lost the info tag that must have come with it, but I looked it up and think it's a Peperomia obtusifolia.

It's been an indoor plant all it's life, until this year when I put it outside for some reason... it's been getting much more sunlight and water than it ever has, and here's what happened:



OK maybe flowered is a stretch of our normal idea of flowers...those spikes comng up out of the plant are the flowers.

Spider Plant

I have a number of small spider plants all derived from a plant my boyfriends Dad had 10 years ago (I think he still has the plant). They chug along, living life, but not always well. There are usually bouts of dry soil, soggy soil, and less than ideal lighting throughout their lifetime which stunt their growth, and make them a little sad.

One of these spider plants was outdoors during our one unusual night of winter freeze last year (in the east SF Bay Area, it is indeed rare to have a freeze...) and it died.

well, I thought it died anyway, I don't have a picture of the dead palnt, but if you imagine a terracotta pot with a few little brown shrivled blades sticking out of the dirt, that's pretty much what it looked like. I never got around to taking it out of the pot, or bringing it inside... and in the spring it came back lush, and beautiful.



When I moved to a new space in our office at work, I decided to bring it in, since there was a perfect window for it to live in. It was extremely happy, and all my coworkers thought I had a seriously green thumb ;-) but really, it was just good luck.

Hummingbirds on the Condo Porch

Okay, this is so cool! We live in a condo, so as you can imagine, there isn't a lot of green right around us. We are next to a park and wetland, but if you look off our porch, nothing but asphalt, stucco and other non-natural substances.

So, consider my surprise when hummingbirds started visiting our little tiny porch!!! They just love the aloe flowers that I posted about earlier and they come back every few days to try out the new blooms that opened up.

It makes me happy to feed some wildlife and actually have some nature happening at our condo. Score one for the plant covered porch!

Elephant Ear Plant

My little Elephant Ear plant was a random Home Depot purchase about 5 years ago. It never seemed very happy in our other homes, but it likes the little spot it's in now. We have a stair case that goes down to the garage and we keep our wine there, since it doesn't get any sun light. There is a little window, but since everyone who walks by can see in it, we keep the shades closes most of the way.

The Elephant Ear just sits right next to the window and gets its little leaves through the blinds every once in a while, then I turn it.

It has two stalks, and a few months ago all the leaves went through their normal growing/dying routine, but nothing new was sprouting. There were just two stalks. I figured they weren't dead so I cut back on the watering and over the summer it just sort of looked sad.

Then a few weeks back one leaf sprouted - nice and adorably small compared to what it was. And now I have four leaves, two on each stalk. It totally looks better than ever!

I have no idea how it happened, but it has come back to life and looks like a whole new plant. Maybe it's just glad I didn't kill it.

Neglect

I have been spending every waking moment at work for the past 10 days. My plants are suffering something awful. I actually get a day off tomorrow and a good portion of it will be spent on trying to get my plants to forgive me and not die.

Wish me luck.