Houseplants tour

Hello, hi! Today I’d like to introduce you to my indoor plants. I don’t have many, but I still care about each one, so let me introduce you to this green family of mine!

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🌿 lucky spiral bamboo 🌿

Of course, this little brother of a bamboo three is not really it’s relative. While big bamboo is a cereal plant, lucky bamboo is a subspecies of dracaena. Id doesn’t grow that big and fast as cereal bamboo, and also is not hollow inside. Lucky bamboo doesn’t need much sunlight witch makes it a good indoors plant for cold regions that don’t see much sun most of the year. The root system is also very small, which makes lucky bamboo very convenient to keep in small bottles or pots.

To add more to the unpretentiousness of it, lucky bamboo also doesn’t really care if it grows in the water, soil or hydrogel — it feels good anywhere! I, for example, keep it in hydrogel, because it’s less likely to rot than water and also won't have problems of being too thick/sandy/etc like soil. Win-win!

🌿 ficus 🌿

This is probably the biggest plant in my collection. Buying it was an impulsive decision, really — it was evening when I was entering a grocery store where I previously bought a hyacinth in a tiny, almost non-existing temporary pot. I saw a shelf of ficus plants, most of which already looked kind of sad, and since the shelf was almost full, I felt like I should take at least one home.

Ficus needs a lot of space for it’s roots, so I planted it into the biggest pot I had at a time. A lot of water, regular stirring of the soil, because ficus roots like loose soil filled with air. I hope it won’t be a problem in the future, as ficus grows into a really big bush and I might not have a room for it when I’ll live alone. But, well, we’re years away from this happening, so I think it’s okay!

🌿 hyacinth🌿

The previously mentioned flower from the same grocery store! Hyacinth grows from a bulb and has long-long roots. The roots of this hyacinth were twisted into spirals along the inner wall of a tiny pot, ⅔ of which filled with sand. Don’t get me wrong, this is how you transport them, it’s more than normal. It's just a little sad to see an almost full shelf fading. Why stock so many if most fades in the store?

Hyacinth has a very short blooming span, only about two weeks. Then, flowers dry and fall, and the top plant fades to come back year later — the bulb lives underground for a full year, alive and well. My hyacinth is freshly bought about a week before the blooming season. At the time there was still snow lying around, so it bloomed in the pot this year. I plan to put the bulb in the garden once the ground is warm enough, so it will adjust easier!

It’s blooming is long over, so the picture above is not its current state, but the moment it just started to bloom!

🌿 lotus 🌿

A very interesting water plant I have! I originally wanted to put it outside, but it’s still too cold for them, so I wait for May to come.

They like sun and fresh slightly warm water (about 25C). I kept them in the not-so-big bottles and vases for growth control — I don’t need them to be too big for flowerpots outside or my vases indoors. I can’t keep them in the bucket at home, you know? They are still in the process of growing, that’s why there’s no soil in the jar. Later they will move to the big basin with soil and rocks in it! But first, we need the sun to show up properly. Too cold still, brrr!

🌿 bean sprout 🌿

Unexpected, is it? The thing is, I just wanted to plant something reeeeeeally easy. When I was in elementary school, it was a part of the program to grow your own bean sprout. Beans are the easiest and most illustrative example of plant growth. The bean, which at the same time is a seed, is not put into the soil immediately, first you put it onto a plate and cover it with wet cotton pads, so the first root can come out. Only when the root is out and looks like a cute long tail, you put it into the pot. I remember growing a bean sprout and drawing the process for school…

Bean plant grows big and tall if you plant it in the garden, but mostly it adjusts to the amount of soil it has. Once this sprout grows taller and will have leaves I’ll put it in a bigger pot, but I don’t plan to put it in the garden. I’m not a fan of beans, really… A couple of pods is more than enough for me!

🌿 purple basil 🌿

Ever since I played OMORI…

Okay, I’m joking! Although now basil does remind me of Basil for sure, originally I planted it because my father really liked it as a seasoning for macaroni. I was thinking about what to plant, so he suggested basil for his cooking. Turns out I bought the wrong basil, though — regular green basil is what he likes, while purple one is way too sweet to season macaroni. Well! Should’ve said sooner. There’s both green and purple sprouts, though? Maybe they got mixed or something... 

I will keep some sprouts in the pot at home, and the rest will be going to the garden. I’ve been planning on building a herb spiral, and I think basil will be a great start for it!

🌿 marimo moss 🌿

Most wanted, long planned, the first plants that moved into this room. I have two bigger moss balls, they’re both about 4-5cm, and two baby balls about 0,5cm. I keep them in cool, but not cold water, and from time to time give their jar a gentle shake. In nature, marimos are spinned by the movement of the surface waves when the wind blows. That’s what makes them so round, but in human house there’s no wind, so we should compensate for it! Marimos don’t really like much light, so I don’t keep them on my windowsill, but on a shadowed shelf. Yet they still need light to be green, so they sit on lightened side of the shelf for two-three days each week :^

🌿 kalanchoe tomentosa 🌿

A fluffy little plant, only about 5cm above the ground. It’s succulent, so it doesn’t need much care besides light and rare watering. Although its scientific name is not hard, we here call them bear paws, since the brown edges of its leaves look like tiny claws. Not much to say about it. Just enjoy the cuteness!

You might have noticed that bean sprout sits in similar pot — kalanchoe is the one who started my love of terracotta pots. I owned a couple of succulents during my highschool years, but they all died very fast, despite not being hard to maintain. Now I understand that a lot (if not all) of times it was a watering problem — I either forgot to water them for a month or poured too much thrice a week. Water control is overall a hard thing, especially for succulents who don’t need much but won’t be good with too little. So, terracotta pots are must-haves for succulents! The thing is that they’re unburned and unglazed, therefore terracotta sucks in all excess water you pour, leaving no stuck liquid, only moist soil! Therefore, your plants will be saved by those pots if you’re a natural flood causer!

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That’s it for today! My indoor plants were very happy to meet you!

Once the snow is gone and it will get warm enough to start gardening, I might write another blog about plants, but it’s multiple months away from now. 

Make it ‘till then first, as we say. I hope we will!