A Bit about House Plants

I haven't blogged for a while but I thought that letting you know I've done more weeding and trimmed the bushes every couple of days was a tad unnecessary. Everything is just growing nicely in the garden and we should soon have strawberries but I thought today I'd make a post about my house plant collection who all have names by the way.

Many house plants have lots of other uses other than just looking good or producing pretty flowers. The peace lily (spathiphyllum) of which I have 2 is probably the best well known for it's benefits, my fella has asthma and reading up on what can ease his condition I came across the peace lily. This plant this plant can improve air quality by removing airborn contaminants like mold, lots of people put them in bathrooms, I do have one in the bathroom and it thrives there, both lilys are small breeds I think they're easier to keep. They need watering on a regular basis and now and again a shop bought plant feed and they're happy as larry.

Of course some of my house plants bare fruit so it's easy to see the benefits of both my lemon and fig trees. These plants are indoors rather than out because the make great indoor plants where they thrive as long as they are fed, watered and not allowed to become pot bound.
Lemon trees in particular are very hungry so Mr Lemon gets a special citrus formula plant feed as well as sugar water occasionally to produce sweeter fruits.

Most of the plants I grow indoors are easy to care for and grow happily, however there's always one isn't there? When I was dating Ash he bought me a Orchid (Phalaenopsis) which was beautiful with dappled purple/pink flowers. This was 3 years ago, I've never see a flower on Florance since. She gets fed with special orchid drip feeds and orchid spray, her water can't come fresh out of the tap it needs to be left to stand for 24 hours, her roots can't be left to stand in  water, orchids must be free draining. I've changed the position of the plant several times, from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen. I think we may have something with bringing it to the kitchen though, as yo can see there are new green growths 5 in all sprouting from the bottom of the plant, these are new roots which could go into the soil or hang around in the air to catch moisture in the air.
The roots grow fast when they get going so fingers crossed I wanna see some flowers soon.  






I have 2 cacti which can be hard to keep, I'm no expert on cacti and bought Bob (the round spiky one) because it looked like a nice cactus, but I've had him about 5 years now so must be doing something right. My newest plant is the Easter Cactus Ellie, Easter/Christmas Cacti are so called because of the time of year they flower. The Easter/Christmas cacti is also good at air purifying and removing toxins from the air and of course they release oxygen into the air.

I have 10 house plants in total not including the veg plants and herbs I start off indoors many I've bought reduced and looking a little sgraggley from shops like B&Q and Aldi and nursed back to health, so you don't have to spend alot and you can give a unwanted plant a second chance.

Spring Getting More Springy

It's now late March and things are beginning to happen, my roof is being done currently so little can be done outside as a huge pile of slate and timber sits in the middle of what was a lawn. However indoors there's a little action.
My mushrooms are sprouting away and I've had a few but probably not as many as I could, mushroom are easy to forget about I must admit but the soil NEEDS to be kept moist. Another problem is with their love for warmish moist conditions they do attract some tiny little flies, I can't think of a way to remedy this unfortunately so I just keep them as far away from us as possible while still being indoors. This is one of my chestnut mushrooms, I left it a little too long before picking, it's still good to eat but you should pick them before the gills underneath show.

Second the tomato seedlings have really took off and I've transplanted the strongest of the plants into a pot so I can sow more seeds in the propagator. The pepper seedlings have just started to show too, they take longer than tomatoes. No sign of butternut squash seedlings yet =(. We've also got microgreen herbs and Chinese chives from the James Wong selection on their way.

Now I'm very scatty and there are plants I plant and forget about. About 18 months ago I bought small fig tree only half a foot tall at The Range thinking oh well that'll be different. I re-potted it and it grew. It loses it's leaves in Winter and has to be brought indoors to avoid frost. When I moved house last Autumn I left the fig tree, lovingly named Phileas Fig with my mum. She looked after him over Winter and the other week tells me "that tree shot up and it's got new leaves." I took a look, now mum's hallway is very small and a bit gloomy so as well as getting in the way poor Phileas wasn't getting the nourishing light he needs so he's a little pale. But to my surprise there were 2 little green nodules growing from the tree. Figs! Wow unexpected he's still only small. He's gonna need some multi-purpose feed and when he's moved outdoors after any frost risk has gone I'll grab some manure from the animal sanctuary. Tomato feed once every 3 weeks helps too according to RHS. He's now in my hallway, alot more room and light till he can go outside.