R.I.P. Nonna

November 13, 1919 - May 30, 2011

currently addicted to: music

Albert Hammond Jr. "Yours to Keep"

plant update

R.I.P. Aloe Vera

Well, one plant has bitten the dust.  In my defense, it didn’t start life here in the most advantageous condition.  It was ripped out of its home by my friend as we were walking through a condo complex.  “The smaller plants at the base will suffocate the plant, so they should be removed anyway” she reassured me.  But we didn’t have clippers so she had to pull it out by hand.  She struggled quite a bit with it and in retrospect this difficulty should have warned us to leave the poor thing alone.

But where one plant dies, another flourishes.  My herb plants are growing like crazy.  I may have to prune them soon and freeze the trimmings.  I also want to make pesto sauce with the basil but I don’t have a mortar and pestle which is essential to avoiding the acidic taste that basil gets when you cut it with a stainless steel knife.

For my birthday, the above-mentioned friend gave me a new addition to my little plant family (no, she didn't steal it from some family's garden, this came from her own garden).  Can anyone guess what plant this is?

No, it’s not pot, but it does bear fruit….my favourite….TOMATOES!  Now, I think I’m going to have to be more attentive but so far so good.  I’ve had her four days and her leaves are nice and perky.  This may sound crazy, but I get the feeling she’s happy.  She reminds me of the plant in Wall-E, so delicate, yet so strong.  I’ve put her in the solarium and I will need to re-pot soon but for now everything seems okay.

can a black thumb become green?

I've recently decided to give gardening another try.  well, actually, just a try...no "another" because this is the first time that I'm putting real effort into it.

In the past, I've had basil plants and they've never lasted much past the summer season.  I've also had an office plant, you know, the kind where you can forget about it and then all of a sudden it looks dead so you rush to water it hoping to have saved it in time and 10 minutes later the plant looks fresh as a daisy.  yeah, I killed that one too.  I've had a few orchids but they are so out of my league and died almost instantly.   I've also had an oleander which my grandma brought from Italy as a little baby plant (technically she shouldn't have been allowed to bring it into Canada but my grandma was a sweet little old lady) and grew to epic proportions.  It flowered every year and it was just a beautiful plant.  I didn't even have to worry too much about it.....until I took it back to my mother's house.  She decided that it needed pruning and proceeded to prune the life out of the plant....literally.  There was only a stump left.

So anyway, I want to learn to take care of plants and I thought I'd start off with plants that don't need too much attention.  This may sound like the easy way but rest assured I did not purchase any of the succulent plants in the pictures (I did buy the herbs, but that's for cooking purposes).  The plants in the pictures are all pieces of other plants given to me by friends.  I've planted them in their own pots and I'm hoping that they'll take root and grow.

these, once they start, multiply like crazy

this one when it grows will hang over the sides of the pot

this is my favourite - little brains!

I'm not sure this one's going to take root - I'm keeping my fingers crossed because aloe vera is very handy in the summer!

this is the bastard plant because it has these teeny tiny needles that stick to you whenever you get near the plant and they're painful -  however it's quite photogenic

If anyone has any suggestions or advice or if one of my plants looks like it's dying let me know!