Twenty-two and nursing a gardening addiction in a little apartment while I figure out life. I prefer succulents and other weirdos of the plant world, but all plants are beautiful. Questions and comments are welcome. Suggestions are welcome if you have thought them through.
Actually saw an ornamental cabbage that I thought was pretty the other day. Not a common occurrence for me.
Anonymous asked: Hey fuzzy tree. I just read your whole blog and I like it very much! I have space issues too. I have a southwest facing window and it's quite big, but no windowsill, so my plants sit on top of two boxes right under the window. How do you manage to fit more plants into the sunlit area? MOAR PLANTS is all we want but how?
Hello, anon! I am glad you like my blog so much!
I am inclined to assume the following things about you, anon: 1. You are low on cash. 2. You are renting/in a dorm room and cannot make major modifications to your dwelling. That said, it will be difficult to fix this with zero dollars and zero alterations.
So, the main theme to the following solutions is to think vertical.
Solution one: Stack your plants.
This is pretty much the only free solution, but it also turns watering into plant jenga <sarcasm> funtimes </sarcasm>. If you look at the right-hand side of the picture in this post, you’ll see what I mean by stacking.
Solution two: Hang those suckers.
Unless your landlord is really strict, s/he’ll probably be fine with you putting up a few hooks. Obviously this involves some handy skills, like using a drill, and making sure your ceiling isn’t going to fall apart. You can then buy a hanging planter or use your crafty skills to make your own. Here’s instructions for a simple macrame plant hanger. (Note: while I am a great lover of command hooks, I would not entrust my plants to them. Wet soil is heavy.
Solution three: Backless bookcase/wire shelves.
When you say that you have your plants on boxes, I picture them rather below the level of the bottom of the windowsill. For the strongest light, plants should be right in front of the window. Instead of the boxes, you could get something like this shelf and put plants on the top shelf or two, and keep tools/extra pots/whatever you want on the lower shelves (and here’s a smaller version of that shelf). If you wanted to keep going up, you could get some wire cubes to put your plants in. I like that the shelves are white, because they will reflect light best, and the wire cubes let a lot of light through. I would recommend putting the least light-needy plants the lowest on the shelves, and the neediest on top. (Also, make sure your shelves don’t get too top-heavy, especially if you have pets or small children! When I was using the wire shelves, I solved this by storing my potting soil and extra gravel on the bottom shelf.)
Other stuff:
- I like to pick up my plants when I water them, so I have pretty much dispensed with the little saucers for all but my largest plants. Instead I hold them over a wide, shallow dish (well, actually an upside-down frisbee) and let the water drain. I then leave it there, and it evaporates (without growing mold like a tall glass would).
- Tiny plants = more plants. There are plenty of succulents that will be happy for a long period of time in two, three, or four inch pots.
- Square pots are sort of more space efficient, but are probably more expensive/harder to find, too. (Also apparently some caudex plants will grow square caudexes if you put them in square pots. Forgot where I read that, though.) Make sure all your pots have drainage holes!
Well, I hope this was helpful, anon. Have fun, and let me know how it goes!
Succulent cuttings 6/25/2012
It’s been awhile since I talked about my various cuttings from my echeverias and sedums. Like many (but not all) succulents, new plants can be started from a single leaf of these plants.
Top row: Sedum cuttings. My S. morganianum loses leaves like nobody’s business, and I find it hard to resist starting new plants from them. My S. something-or-another has also dropped a few leaves recently; a few of the smaller ones accidentally ended up in with the S. morganianums, and I have two big ones in a “pot” by themselves.
Middle row: Echeveria ‘ramillette’. These cuttings were taken in the fall, shortly before the parent plant bit the dust. The two on the left were slow to put down roots, and therefore somewhat smaller than the other echeveria cuttings taken at the same time. The rightmost one is the same age as the others, and has put down roots, but for some reason just sits there without leaves.
Bottom row: Echeveria ‘lola’. The two cuttings on the left are also from the fall. The two leaves in the single pot are recently-fallen leaves that I noticed were producing roots. The smaller of the two is actually from one of the cuttings!
Rule of thumb for succulents: the further the leaf color is from green, the more sun it wants.
Most succulents are pretty sun-hungry, but anything brightly or palely colored will probably need particularly intense sunlight. If you bring plants like these indoors, they are likely to turn green (as they produce more chlorophyll in an attempt to feed themselves). Many of them will will then continue life happily in this slightly-more-boring state; however, they may also get “leggy,” and if they can’t adjust to the change in light conditions, they may rot.
Likewise, a previously-green plant may develop bright red edges or other nice coloring when moved to a sunnier spot, or as winter moves into spring. This is perfectly healthy. Watch out, however, when new leaves develop brown patches: this could be a sign of “sunburn.”
If you’re short on light and you want to keep a succulent indoors, consider a nice haworthia. Many of them need only a few hours of direct sun a day. To be certain of its needs, check with the seller of any plant.
Edited to add: Not sure if this includes cacti.
Can’t really get them all in one shot anymore, but here’s a state-of-the-garden photoset. Some things need potted up to the next size, so I guess I’ll have to break out the second grow-light. I’m pretty much out of room, otherwise.
I wonder…
if I am the only college student ever to attempt to add nutrition to her ramen by adding micro greens she’s grown herself.
This is the plant that generated most of my complaints a few days ago. As you can see, it had gotten rather out of hand. (It used to look like this.) Luckily, someone had these extra skewers laying around, so yesterday I rigged something to prop the damn poor thing up and out of the way, at least temporarily. The skewers were long enough to reach the bottom of the pot, so hopefully they will be fairly stable.
Look! I can basic tool use.
It is spring and my plants are growing!
This is both wonderful and horrible, because I spent the fall and winter buying as many plants as would fit in my space, and now they want more space.
“What are you doing? I thought you were an upright plant? Why are you suddenly spreading horizontally? No, you may NOT put down roots in your neighbor’s pot! Stop it! Ahh, I need to water that other plant, get out of the way!”
Gayla Trail, creator of YouGrowGirl.com, in an interview with MrBrownThumb.
THIS. It bothers me with succulents, too.
