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.

New Lemon Tree and Mushroom Growing too.

I hate Ikea, but the other day I saw some thing that didn't require delivery, assembly or an allen key. It was a lemon tree, just a couple of feet tall and costing £20. But something bothered me and that was all the signs around them saying "fruit is not edible" and "please do not  eat the fruit". I went home to read up on why this is. I suspected it was just to stop people stealing the fruit as I has never heard of a purely ornamental lemon tree. Reading on the Grow Your Own forum http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/  a person had the same experience at Aldi and the experts say it is because the tree and fruit has probably been sprayed with pesticides and other nasties but after the fruit growing in store has gone further fruit will be fine. Great we went out again and brought our lemon tree home and named it Jonny, after a friend who used to call himself Mr Lemon.

Something bothered me though and that was the size of the pot Jonny was crammed into, poor thing. It's roots had emerged on the surface, this is the sign of a pot-bound tree. So off I went to my local garden center (I tried The Range first but word of advice, they're useless) to buy citrus compost. You should plant citrus plants in special compost because they are very picky. A pH of 6.5 is ideal,they don't like acid or alkaline very much at all. It also needs to drain well. They also need feeding often especially in the summer. For now Jonny lives indoors in the corner of my living room but in summer He'll probably go live on the step outside the door.

My next little (indoor) project at the moment is mushrooms. Chestnut mushrooms to be exact. I bought a little kit from The Range for £3.99 which is a good price as they're usually about £8. Maybe you pay for what you get but we'll find out. The kit is basically just a box with a lid, wet compost and substrate covered in mushroom spores. Follow the instructions, keep moist, warm and dark and wait for the mushrooms. I tried one of the little kits from the pound shop before and they are good, mushrooms only take a couple of weeks to pop up. Can't wait chestnut mushrooms are great in a stir fry or risotto.

Photos will be added when the mushrooms grow but for now I thought this was funny ^