Anyone up for a house plant chat?

[PinkPrincessPhilo]

I couldn’t find one by searching.

Is anyone else a lover of house plants? I’ve built up a nice collection including some rarer finds like a Pink Princess Philodendron and a variegated monstera. Plus plenty of monstera in general.

My current hobby is house plant propagation- having most success with monstera, various tradescantia, dieffenbachia, and maranta. Going to try a snake plant and the pink philodendron next.

I like house plants but find them incredibly fickle & temperamental so have lost quite a few too.
Seem to do best with succulent types.
Weirdly my DD (8) is great orchids, whereas mine always die bar one hardy specimen. & DS (4) does well with cacti Venus fly traps.
My ficus decided to drop half its leaves a few months back, for no apparent reason; one day, beautiful lush green leaves practically the next half where shrivelled & dropped. It hadn't been moved, temp is pretty regular (CH), watering pattern the same. Anyway it's revived & has a few more leaves now but I watch it with trepidation.
Had a lovely prayer plant which was doing fab in the kitchen & then all of sudden just got ill. Found it had (I think) spidermites - but nothing I tried worked so have given up on that one.
Have several doing wonderfully - spider plant, snake plant, viola, Christmas cactus, bromeliad & aloe etc
Also have two citrus - they're doing ok, have moved them outside for the summer but the calemondian orange's leaves are going yellow & I'm only watering it occasionally with rain water; the lime lost all its leaves but has now got new ones plus buds.

Yes, I would. I don't have many, small house with not much well lit space for plants. I've got a maidenhead fern, my oldest plant, a monstera adansonii, that I love, a phaelenopsis orchid, a pilea, a peperomia (I forget which....red log?), a syngonium of some sort and a bunch of succulents.

I've propagated the monstera, it was very easy, beginners luck. I'm currently trying to propagate some echeveria leaves left over after their mum got stretched then chopped.

I also got a bell jar terrarium with an overgrown fittonia and a peperomia prostrata that's taking over. I'm going to trim them and might try to propagate the cuttings

I've got some amaryllis that I pollinated, I'm hoping the seeds will ripen and I can try growing them.

Excellent, I’ve found my people!

@IcakethereforeIam I’m propagating some echeveria at the moment. Started about three weeks ago and no noticeable growth yet. I think I can see the beginning of tiny little roots/stems but not entirely sure.

I’m also propagating a string of pearls. Have some lovely mature string of hearts plants that are doing really well, but the only string of pearls I’ve ever had didn’t do at all well. Hoping I’ll get some from the short stem I’m propagating.

@APurpleSquirrel sympathy especially over spider mites. I've dodged that particular bullet for now. I want my houseplants to be either reasonably healthy or dead. I can be doing with plants that are constantly circling the drain. It's too stressful.

Ooh, I happened to have a massive bag of naice cactus mix and one of those flat lidded boxes you get Ferrero rocher in. I was thrilled to think of a use for it. A layer of dirt with the leaves in rows on top. It is taking ages for anything to happen (a few weeks). A minority just shrivelled up, a few have got wee baby plants 😍 the rest are sending out roots but they're as likely to grow up as down, it's weird. I don't think you need to water them but I've been giving them the odd spritz.

I bought a senecio last weekend, just cost a couple of quid. I think it's a variety called himalaya. Lots of fleshy green fingers that are great to touch. I've not got anywhere suitable for a hanging plant or I'd definitely be tempted by the string of pearls. I've got some sedum burrita which are getting a bit long, I've got my eye on a candle holder that should buy me another year.

I've seen plant tubers (usually US based) who just propagate their sop's so easily. Like the burrita, just dump it on some earth! Doesn't seem fair.

I’m just getting into houseplants so know very little.

Only the front of my house is south facing, leaving me with a big hallway window that has direct light (holding a limequat from Lidl, a chilli pepper plant at night, and some sun loving succulents). My office has good bright indirect light and I’ve got a zz plant, pilea (and I can just see a baby plant at the end of the pot, need to research when it’s big enough to cut off), and a string of hearts. Have a pothos upstairs bathroom, and a tiny baby neon something (ephin…??) in the kitchen. Oh and a little peperomia in the living room. I’ve had to make a spreadsheet for watering! And am mostly watering from bottom up.

love the idea of learning how to propagate. Two months ago I had no plants so bit of a learning curve!

Hello, can I join too? I've got:
A windowsill full of tradescantia that need sorting as they've gone a bit mental
A rescued variegated monstera that reverted to green in its old home. It's over 5ft tall so I'll probably chop and prop
A standard monstera
Another nice variegated monstera
A pathos variety
2 baby variegated ficus
Various succulents
Some kind of cactus that seems impossible to kill
3 calatheas
A parlour palm
An orchid plus its baby that's just finished flowering

I've got a week off in July so that will be repotting for most, fingers crossed they survive!

@APurpleSquirrel if you haven't binned the prayer plant yet you could try something I did to a pelargonium that got covered with some sort of sap sucker. I filled a bucket with cool water with a dash of washing up liquid in it. Inverted the plant and dunked the entire thing. It may work, it did for me, or it may kill the plant but if you're desperate I think it's worth a try.

I've got four teeny echeveria babies and a bunch of leaves with roots. Haven't the foggiest idea what I'm going to do with them if they do all survive. I'm not the biggest fan of them, I prefer crassula and haworthia.

I don't have room for a Monstera deliciosa I think they need space to do them justice. Will the variagation come back?

@IcakethereforeIam the top 5 or so leaves are full green as it didn't have enough light/proper care in its former home. If I chop it below the last variegated leaf on a stripy stem I should hopefully get a variegated leaf next but no guarantees. Its very happy where it is now so fingers crossed!

I should be able to prop the green section and have a plain green plant from that (not that I have space for another 🙃)

I'd be up for houseplant chat. I have quite a lot of plants but that didn't stop me spending a shameful amount at Happy Houseplants the other day, on a couple of unsusual philodendrons and what they call a 'plant rescuers box' - which is a potluck delivery of four plants that were considered to be past their best.

This morning I was thrilled to see that one of my airplants had put out four flower spikes. I nearly danced for joy.

Also, some orchids (that I call my Dead Man's Orchids because they were being sold off at an orchid event by the friend of a deceased orchid fanatic) have recently put on a bit of fresh growth just when I was starting to fear that they, like their late owner, might have passed away.

I have loads of succulents too, but I am just starting to feel a bit fed up with some of them.

Can someone recommend some nice smelling low maintenance houseplants please?

How about scented leaf pelargoniums? Or any pelargoniums, really, since they all have a gorgeous musky odour when their leaves are bruised. They are easy to look after, unlike, say, gardenia or jasmine, which are beautifully fragrant but relatively fussy.

You’re off to an excellent start. Some great plants there.

Not sure if you use Tik Tok but I love following #planttok videos. Great info there if you want to try your hand at propagation.

I've just moved to a new house which needs everything doing to it, but can't get to it all just yet (waiting for planning permission to come through), so have been overcompensating by filling it with houseplants. I've always filled my houses with plants, but I'll admit I've gone a bit crazy the last year.

Apart from all the usual suspects I've accumulated some rather lovely calatheas. The way they fold up at night really cheers me up for some reason. I've also got a bunch of unusual orchids, no idea if I'll ever be able to get them to flower again but I'm enjoying them for now. My favourite is the spider orchid, such a strange fish!

Does anyone have a plant cabinet? I’ve just purchased and am hoping to set it up this weekend, if all the accessories arrive on time.

For those not familiar, it’s basically a cabinet with glass sides and shelves (I went for the Milsbo from Ikea) with added grow lights, humidifiers, and fans. It’s kept indoors and acts as a very humid greenhouse/grow house for tropical plants.

I don't but it will be interesting to know how you get on with yurs. I've been spraying various humindty loving plants like mad the last few days, so I can see how a cabinet might be attrative.

Just googled a particular orchid of mine (for repotting tips), and came across this description of the leaves:
a single, apical, erect, thickly coriaceous, glossy green, elliptical, subacute to obtuse leaf that is narrowly cuneate

Mmmm, I like my orchids how I like my men: thickly coriaceous and narrowly cuneate.

And erect 😉

😂😆

And single?

Just noticed my pilea is having a baby! It's early days yet, she's barely showing.

My phalaenopsis is going through a growth spurt. It's getting a new leaf and a flower stalk. It also seems to be trying to climb out of its pot. The whole thing has lifted up and lurched sideways. Does anyone know if they can be repotted while they're flowering.

Aww, you’re going to be a pilea granny!

I was in a restaurant earlier, seated by the window which had a lovely big aloe. It had about 6 pups. I was so tempted to “rescue” one 😬

Ive never reported any orchid while flowering. I figure that if they’re flowering or pushing up new leaves, they’re happy so I leave them be.

I've ordered tap water in restaurants before now to give their plants a water. Never been tempted to nick a pup or a cutting, but that would might change if they had a really interesting variety.

My orchid actually fell out of its pot this afternoon. It made the decision for me. I cleaned it and trimmed off some dead roots. Then put it back in the same pot with the same bark, I didn't have anything else. It seems to have been started off in a block of foam, which must be buoyant. I think everytime I watered it it was being lifted up.

Plant granny 😁 well, I've got the grey hairs but not the twinset.

I have 45 houseplants at present - it’s become a bit of an obsession. My only successes with propagating are a monstera, spider plants and my zebrina.
@PinkPrincessPhilo I now want a plant cabinet.

Can anyone suggest a large house plant that will survive in my windowless hallway please?

If there's no natural light at all, would you consider using a grow light?