#plant diary

[greenycacteable]

The baby echeverias !

[pothoswitch]

6th may 2022

Magical shadows 🌿🌤

[envirogreenery]

By introducing just a few live plants, air quality can be improved within your space. CO2 can be reduced by 50% as well as a reduction in the dust, bacteria and mould which would otherwise be inhaled. Dust levels in your space can be reduced by up to 20 per cent when plants are introduced.

With correct placement of plants, the need for air con can also be reduced and the air kept at a higher humidity (up to 20%).

By reducing the dry air caused by air conditioning and increasing humidity, illnesses such as tickly coughs are much less common.

🌿 Here’s 7 indoor plants that help to purify the air around your space:

1. Snake Plant: This popular plant can actually help you get a good nights sleep! Snake Plant, otherwise known as Sansevieria, releases oxygen at night - making it a great low maintenance plant for the bedroom.

2. Spider Plant: This common houseplant is one of the easiest air purifiers to grow! It is also great for pet owners, as it is non-toxic.

3. Bamboo Palm: This palm excels in removing molds and ammonia often found in household cleaning products.

4. Dracaena: At this point, we all know dracaena. These common houseplants clear out air pollutants such as benzene, xylene, trichloroethylene, formaldehyde, and carbon dioxide.

5. Aloe Vera: Not only can the gel of this plant help ease burns and scrapes, this succulent purifies the air of formaldehyde and benzene.

6. Rubber Tree: This plant with thick waxy leaves produces tons of oxygen and removes bacteria and mold spores from the air.

7. Aglaonema: This low light plant excels low levels of benzene and formaldehyde from the air.

[botanicxdiary]

03 Mar 2023

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted updates on my Tradescantia Pallida, aka Ursula—I promise she’s not dead—so I guess better late than never. So, last time I had said that Ursula’s baby was rooting and I was so excited, but a lot has happened since then so let me catch you up to speed.

First of all, I put both plants together in a slightly bigger “pot” (a grande Starbucks cup that I put drainage holes in). At first, neither plant would root into the dirt, so I decided to soak the dirt in some water before repotting them into the same cup. It was a huge risk I took, considering I could have suffocated the roots or caused dry rot to my plants. But it worked tremendously! I just didn’t have to water them for a month or so.

After some time, I finally checked in on my plants and they had grown significantly! Their roots were healthy and they were growing taller. I watered them again and they were pretty thirsty. But other than that, it was pretty uneventful.

On Monday (Feb 27) though, I watered them again since it had been a couple of weeks since I last watered them. They didn’t drink much which I half expected. And as of right now, they’re just soaking up some sun in my window.

I know this isn’t a huge update, but it is something. I think I’m getting the hang of being a plant parent, I just need to remember to post updates on here when I can. But I think that’s it for now! Thank you for following me on my plant journey with Ursula and I hope you continue to check in with us!

[thegreenxplace]

Name: Hope

Type: Peperomia Hope

Acquired: 9 Nov 22

Pet safe: Yes

[seasonofthewitch66]

Let’s talk Snap Dragons 🪴✨

Snap Dragons, a frequently forgotten ally in protective and baneful magic. These flowers are incredibly useful alongside being incredibly beautiful✨ this post will cover some basic facts about these plants including origins, care, and metaphysical properties 🪴

Basic facts and care🌱

Snap Dragons, also called Antirrhinum majus. This botanical name actually means “like a snout” referring to the plants snout like appearance, often compared to a dragon or calf snout.

Native to Mediterranean Europe, Syria, and turkey

Do best in full to partial sun, and moist but well drained soil

Come in both standard and dwarf variety

These flowers rely on larger bumblebee species for pollination, as smaller pollinators are unable to open the petals of the plant to access the pollen

Doing best in spring or fall, due to their love of slightly cooler climates.

These tower like flowers begin blooming towards the bottom of their stalk and slowly work their way up to create a full and dynamic appearance.

I prefer to first plant these flowers in the spring, as they are able to settle and take root while maintaining beautiful and vibrant colors. This also allows me to harvest some blooms earlier in the reason before summer hits.

These plants will often struggle during peak heat in the summer, however if you keep them watered and well cared for through the summer heat they will perk back up and bloom again in early fall 🪴

These flowers blooms don’t last terribly long compared to some others, but they make up for it with ease of harvest and their beauty

To harvest these blooms you do have options depending on your end goal. You can either

Cut the entire stalk after all blooms have opened, hang the stalks upside down in a cool, dry place, with a plastic or fabric bag over the flowers to catch any that fall. This is best if you plan to hang these flowers as a protective talisman, or decor either hanging or in a vase

Pinch the blooms, by gently pinching the base and bulling gently you can maintain the flowers shape without separating the petals. To dry these blooms simply place the flowers on a paper towel or thin cloth towel, and sandwich them between 2 layers. This allows the blooms to dry while also not being overly exposed.

Natural drying. Since these blooms do not last long even with perfect care, many people will allow the blooms to dry naturally on the stalk. This is also due to the unique shape snap dragons take when they dry on the stalk. Many thinking the dried blooms resemble tiny skulls.

Metaphysical Properties ✨🌱

Extremely protective, purification, strength, grace

Are believed to help protect against hexes, curses, and nightmares

One of my personal favorite talismans for protection as they carry a more baneful energy

Simple return to sender using snap dragons:

Place your dried snap dragons either in front of a mirror on your altar or in your space, or in a compact mirror. Anywhere the snap dragons are facing a reflection. Do this with the intention of the flowers protecting you against the negative energy, and sending it back. This is my favorite simple way of using snaps in my everyday practice

Have a great day or night, and let me know if you have any questions or requests 🌱✨🪴

[arthooooor]

Gardening Log 1

I've never done one of these before, but I'm really proud of this project and I wanted to share my progress.

BACKSTORY TIME:

My dream of several years has been to start a garden. It never really got off the ground (haha, ground... gardening puns are fun) until this past year. I started breaking the ground up and turning it into a dirt patch sometime this past winter, before The Big Cold, or afterwards on a really warm day-- I really don't remember because my sense of time is completely off. Anyways, now that it's warm and I'm currently unemployed, I have a lot of time to really focus in on that dirt patch. Really make something out of it. For a while it looked like this:

not pictured, but there was cardboard keeping the grass from growing in on those spots for a while. Twas a gardening tip I gathered from youtube. It's also a great way of killing your lawn! I read an article about that while writing this while I was trying to fact check what I did:

https://www.treepeople.org/2014/07/16/sheet-mulch/#:~:text=After%202%20months%2C%20dig%20through,remove%20it%20and%20the%20grass.

Today I set out to make the dirt patch dirt-ier. I don't have a fancy tiller like some folks, just a shovel, a rake, and some kind of hand-tiller I got ages ago. I don't have a good relationship with the hand tiller, it's a little annoying to use and I am not very strong. That said, I got a lot done using all three tools together. Perhaps, with time, we will learn to work together a little more harmoniously.

Anyways, here's the finished product:

I threw some seeds down in the dirt kind of haphazardly as an experiment a few days ago. They might not germinate, or they might. We'll see! I was feeling like an eager beaver. Trying not to be attached to the outcome of that particular pet project.

The other half of this project has been seed germination. I was really unsure of how this would turn out. The only plant I've ever kept alive before was a ficus and unfortunately I had a little bit of an oopsie (psychosis) and I neglected him until he died. RIP Killer Joe, you are missed.

But! I'm in a new chapter of my life and I think my emotional wellbeing is now somewhat tied to whether or not I can keep plants alive.

In all seriousness, if you're in a place where you can and you think gardening will help you, I recommend it. It gives me good feelings inside, which are not always easy to come by.

This is my seed germination set-up. Despite how discouraged I was feeling about this side of the project, I am happy to say my first seeds have sprouted! I would like to include a photo, but tumblr keeps changing that photo to another one. Not sure why... The sprouts are really hard to see anyways.

I am proud of my seeds. I'm not sure if anyone else has ever experienced this, but I find myself whispering when I'm talking to them. Like it I talk too loud, it might scare them (Silly as that may be).

Germinating seeds seemed really intimidating when I first started. I ended up using cardboard and an old cat litter tray filled with potting soil. Obviously, I had many anxieties about how this would go (and will go) given my history with plants, but today's sprouts filled me with joy I was not expecting. The best thing to do seems to be keeping the soil moist throughout the day. I forgot to for a day when I firs started and that sent me into panic mode, but my fears were unfounded.

I am also germinating a single seed using the wet paper towel in a plastic bag method. We will see how that one progresses. It actually sprouted in the tray, but I accidentally pulled it up and I felt bad about just discarding it.

Outside of The Big Project, I am also trying to keep a Lavender plant alive. I don't think she's going to hold on for much longer, but one can always hope.

My current plan is to grow a combination of flowers and vegetables. The first seed tray is all vegetables. The second one is going to be herbs. After the last frost date passes and as long as I can stay patient, I'll worry about flowers.

That about wraps it up! I hope you've enjoyed my first gardening log. I'll update more as I go along and talk more about my plans, which plants I'm growing, and anything else gardening related.

- Art-Marigold

[lindensplantdiary]

Time for that old bloom to go!

[p0thos-is-the-devi1]

Look at her grow 🌱

[greenycacteable]

Heart shaped leaves on this jade plant

[pothoswitch]

1st June 2022

So obsessed with these 💕

[bisexualmaedhros]

1 . 31 . 23

just got my son a grow light so i was able to move him to my room! he was on a windowsill bc at the time it was the spot with the most light, but it was cold there and he was starting to wilt and droop. so hopefully this will help bring him back into good spirits again! i also ordered some maxsea which was recommended to me by the owner of a local plant shop, hopefully it will be here soon

[botanicxdiary]

09 Jan 2023

I have exciting news! I checked in on Ursula’s baby and I noticed there’s a root! Wow, Pluto, a singular root? Look, I know it’s not major progress but it’s big to me! I just propagated it a week ago and now it’s suddenly growing roots! I have to really thank my best friend because of it wasn’t for her advice to put cinnamon on the stem it probably would’ve taken longer to root. But that’s all! I’ll include a picture of Ursula’s baby with its new root, but other than that, that’s the end of today’s update!

[thegreenxplace]

2 Jan 23

So this is the kind of updates I want to be putting out. I forget the last time I water some of my plants and I want to document everything: good and bad. And today, there’s kind of more bad.

So I’d like to start this off by saying this morning, only 14 minutes after I closed my eyes to go to sleep, my sister tells me that our cat knocked over Eros, my pothos. He’s currently in a trenta iced Starbucks cup, propagating in water. So that was a great start to the day. But I did buy a pot for him today, and I plan to pot him when I go back to school in about two weeks.

Galaxy, my mother of many, has not been doing great. He’s losing leaves and I think it’s because his roots aren’t completely covered. So I need to add more dirt to the top of his pot, which I will do once I get back to school.

Aphrodite, my jade succulent, is living in a Starbucks sample cold cup. Her dirt wasn’t touching the sides of her cup anymore, so I had to make sure to maneuver the cup so the dirt could break up.

Hope, my peperomia hope, has been feeling both like she does and doesn’t need water. Some leaves were able to be bent and some were firm. So I didn’t know what to do.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I watered Pluto, my Irish bouquet, or Athena, my gasteraloe. I have plans for watering Athena, so I’m going to wait to water her until I go back to school. For some reason, I cannot find much of any information on Pluto. I saw one video that said that Irish bouquets are dormant in the warmer months and to water them less during that time. Well, now it’s cold and I don’t know what that means.

Lilith, my peperomia orba or peperomia lime, is doing okay partially. I got her from Etsy a few months ago. She has like four clusters (?) in a 6” pot, which is how she was shipped to me. And just recently, like yesterday, one of the clusters rotted. The other three are doing great, but I am terrified for what that means because it’s happened to me before, so I’m just going to let her be for right now.

Lately, Mercury, my peperomia frost, has not been doing that great. I would prune her for propagations and the stems would rot. After removing the rotted parts of the stems, the leaves are now all rooting. However, it does still make me worry about Mercury. I plan to look at her roots when I go back to school.

Jupiter, my tradescantia sillamontana, has been doing GREAT! That is all.

Jupiter’s baby, Callisto, who had just been named today, was not doing too well in my attempt of soil propagation. I cleaned him off, dipped him in cinnamon, and stuck him in some water. Now he looks so much better and I hope to see roots soon. Sometimes, I try not to name the propagations because my ultimate plan is to add them back to their mother plant. But he’s too cute not to name.

Hecate, my peperomia obtusifolia, has been just failing, to the point where I just wanted to toss her. But I procrastinated, and part of me is happy I did. I pulled her out of her pot to find her soil compacted only around her roots. I cleaned her off as best I could and placed her in water for the time being.

I picked up three things to propagate. I have a watermelon peperomia leaf, which is in water with Hecate. Some little succulent beans that I do not know the identity of at this moment. I am propagating them directly onto soil in Hecate’s old pot. And lastly, I have a singular Hoya leaf. It has no stem, so I don’t know what will come of it. Regardless, I added some cinnamon to the bottom of the leaf and threw it in my misc. propagations Starbucks cup.

I would like to say that my propagations aren’t usually in Starbucks cups, but I had to travel home somehow.

Plants that got watered today:

Galaxy (Mother of Many)

Aphrodite (Jade plant)

Hope (Peperomia Hope)

Pluto (Irish Bouquet)

[seasonofthewitch66]

Let’s Talk Fox Glove🪴

Fox Glove is one of my personal favorites when it comes to plants I work with. Not only is it beautiful but it is an incredibly useful ally and harbours beautiful energy in my garden. I am lucky to have an area of my garden that animals and people can’t easily access, this is important to remember with foxglove as it is extremely toxic (both to eat and touch). In this list I’m gonna talk about some basic facts about the plant as well as it’s metaphysical properties and care 🪴🖤

Basic Facts and Care

Fox Glove(digitalis purpurea) is a plant native to Europe, the Mediterranean region, and the Canary Islands

They thrive best in full to partial sun. As well as moist, well drained soil.

They are a biennial. Which means they will come back and flower every year for 2-5 years depending on care and your region.

They contain a poison that is a cardiac stimulant. While yes, foxglove has been used by doctors for certain ailments. Use caution with this plant as it can trigger cardiac events.

When handling this plant it’s important to remember to wear gloves and minimize its contact with your skin. As many people experience rashes after contact. The toxin can also be absorbed though breaks in the skin, so please be a careful.

They are most toxic when they are in their seed producing stage. Their seeds and roots are the most toxic parts of the plant(but all parts of the plants are still toxic)

When drying these beautiful plants for your practice. In my experience it is best to dry them in a cool, dry place, tied upside down with either a plastic or fabric bag over the plant all the way to the area your string is tied, simply to prevent seeds and dried pieces from falling to the floor. This is especially important if you have animals or children.

Metaphysical Properties 🌱✨

Planet: Venus

Zodiac: Taurus

Basic Properties: death, healing, life, protection, fae communication

Extremely protective plant, similar to snap dragons, they act as a protective anchor for both your garden and your household.

I personally use dried foxglove in my herb bundle for my home guardian(Ridire). This encourages him to protect my home and my space, while maintaining a calm, safe energy

[plants-love]