monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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In which I have become a gardener, without leaving my house.
Not much going on this weekend. I stayed home, mostly, and did laundry. Oh, and the upstairs bathroom became the greenhouse.
I have never successfully grown any houseplants. Either I forget their existance altogether, which means they never get watered, or cats eat them.
When we got married, my great-aunt gave me three houseplants, and when they were almost dead from neglect and from being mistaken for salad by bad cats, I gave them to Rich's parents. I don't remember what the others were, but one of them was a spider plant. Twenty-nine years later, they still have that spider plant, and it's huge!
A few years ago Kim wanted to grow something, so we tried growing tomatoes in a couple of big pots outside next to the carport. I bought big pots, some potting soil, plant food, tomato plants, and a trellis - which turned out to be a little optimistic, since the plants never got big enough to tie to the trellis. I probably spent 50 dollars, and grew two (tiny) tomatoes.
Kim was a little disappointed by the tomatoes, but then she wanted to try houseplants. She nagged me about them, until I promised that when we visited Grandma and Grandpa again, she could get some babies from their spider plant, and I'd help her plant them.
I thought she'd forget about them, but she didn't. She brought some babies home, wrapped in damp paper towels, and we put them in a glass of water in the bathroom and forgot about them. When I remembered them, I considered just throwing them away, but I knew Kim would be upset, and the nagging would start all over again.
So I got a pot from the garage, and a few scoops of dirt from the (failed) tomato planters, and planted those three spider babies, and you know what happened? They grew! I made it a habit to water them every Saturday, and I kept the pot on the bathroom counter, so I would see them and remember to water them!
When I noticed that Patsy, the yellow cat, was chewing on the leaves of the plant, I moved it to a bigger pot, and hung it in a plant hanger from a hook that was already in the ceiling in front of the bathroom window, and it's been growing beautifully there every since. When the babies hang down too far, Patsy stil chews on them, but it's not a big deal.
Then I noticed a sickly looking plant on RA's deck rail one day, and she said she put it out there to die because she couldn't remember to water it. It didn't die, because sometimes it got rained on, but it wasn't thriving, either. I kind of liked the pot it was in, and eventually, when it still wasn't dead, but was lingering in a kind of coma, between life and death, I took it home and put it on the bathroom counter, where it also gets watered on Saturdays. I don't know what it is, it looks like a tiny palm tree. It looks pretty good now, although the leaves are a bit raggedy on the ends, thanks to Patsy.
Earlier this year - I think it was when she was home for Christmas break - Kim mentioned that she wished she had a plant to grow in her dorm room, to make it more homey. I told her that she could take some babies from the spider plant in the bathroom to grow a plant with, and she thought that would be a good plan, so we (and when I say 'we' I mean me) cut off three babies and started them in a glass of water.
We put them in a pot of dirt before she went back to school, but I didn't think they were ready to travel, so they stayed on the bathroom counter until they could grow a little bigger. Unfortunately, Patsy the Plant-eater noticed them and I kept catching him eating the leaves. His eating technique involved a pulling motion, and he kept uprooting the little plants, so to save their lives, I moved them to a shelf in the yarn room, where we keep the door closed.
Then, when Kim came home from college at the beginning of May, she brought that Venus Fly-trap that Rachel gave her for her birthday. She put it in the kitchen window, over the sink, and it's been there for a couple of weeks, but this week she moved it upstairs to the bathroom counter. (She told me why, but I can't remember.)
This weekend, when I was watering the plants, I noticed how weak and sickly the spider plant in the yarn room looked. I don't think it was getting enough light in there, and also, it wasn't getting any interaction with people, up there on the shelf by itself, so I brought it back to the bathroom.
There was only one half-dead little plant left in the pot, so I cut three babies from the big spider plant and put them directly into the dirt, making holes for planting with the handle of a hairbrush. I gave it a good watering, too.
Then I closed the bathroom door and announced that the upstairs bathroom is the greenhouse, and told Rich and Kim to keep that door shut so Patsy can't get in and graze like it's a salad bar!
This afternoon when I went into the bathroom, it was misty from Kim's shower, and the plants all looked good. Even the new little spider plant babies that I planted yesterday look healthy and perky. I'm pretty proud of them!
11:38 p.m. - 2009-06-07
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