Gayle's Houseplant Orphanage, Pt. 2
So, y'all may remember last summer, when I found a bunch of dying houseplants in the dumpster of my condo complex, and how upset that made me. Well, I never updated the situation because, sadly, there was something deadly about that condo. Once I brought everything in for the winter, the plants all slowly died - except, of course, Plantzilla, AKA Audrey, who I've had for almost 10 years.
I was very saddened by the death of both my purchased plants and my adopted ones - more so by the adopted ones, because a few of them I had brought back to life from literally being sticks in dirt.
Considering that one of the cats who owns our housemate also became very sick and only started to recover once we were out of there, well, I don't take all the blame. Also, my beta fish, who has been with me through a ridiculous number of moves almost didn't survive the Bridgeport condo either. He's doing better, but I fear he'll never fully recover. So there was something going on in that apartment. Maybe it was black mold - it was a basement apartment, after all.
Anyway.
My front porch is again a container garden, and I am in my glory:
* Plantzilla is getting increasingly enormous.
* I have a few purloined spring bulbs that I found in an unlabeled bag at the condo complex, leftovers from the garden club which were never going to get planted. So I planted them in large containers just to see what they would grow up to be. I'm pretty sure they're going to be gladiolas, but I don't know what color yet. I'm very excited. :)
* I had purchased a pretty succulent with tiny pink flowers which I moved into the house this morning, because while the sun level was perfect, I think the heat killed all the flowers. Hopefully she will bloom again.
* I had 4 seed packets someone gave me - lavendar, columbine, alyssium and coleus - which I planted a few months ago just to see if they would grow. I've never had any luck with seeds, and the packets were all over a year old. They were pretty far past their warantee, anyway. Well, the lavendar never germinated, the alyssium germinated briefly and then died, and the columbine all seem to be stuck as little tiny plants that look a little like clover - I keep caring for them to see if they will mature at all. If not, well, that's cool too.
* But the coleus! Ah, my coleus. I have more coleus plants than I know what to do with. I have to split them up *again* to make sure they don't crowd each other to death. I'm going to end up giving coleus plants to everyone I know who doesn't have a black thumb.
(Yes, this story actually has a point. And look! Here it is!)
Well, I was walking Uber this morning, and there it was: a patio house plant, sitting on top of someone's garbage can, waiting for the garbage men to throw her away. And all because her pretty red flowers had died and her leaves weren't perfect anymore. The pot was far too light - clearly she hadn't been watered in an age. So *of course* I took her, trimmed off her dead flowers and leaves and watered her. I brought her home and put her in the window next to the front door - today is going to be *way* too hot to test her endurance outside. Now I just have to figure out what she is (a quick trip to Wal*Mart or Home Despot should clear that up), and suss out how much water, heat and light she needs. Hopefully she's not too far gone for me to bring back. Hey, I've done it with sticks in dirt before.
I know, I know. I'm weird about plants. And fish. And everything else we, as arrogant fucking humans, claim to take responsibility for and then throw in the garbage when they aren't pretty or convenient anymore.