Wednesday 19 August 2015

Succulent Showday


I've always liked the idea of house plants but I'm terrible at remembering to water things, add that to the fact that as a house sitter I can be away from home for a week at a time and it's easy to see why I've never had pet plants before. Until now!
I decided a couple of months ago that I rather like succulents and since I was accumulating a rather large collection of glass GU pots (they contain rather tasty mini cheesecakes which I had a fad on) I thought it would be nice to put the two together. The original idea was to use a tea cup and I even bought a little succulent from the saturday market and transplanted into a dainty little cup with matching saucer and rather promptly killed it.
Being rather good at knowing my knack for failure I picked up a couple of freebie succulents from a garden we worked in and whacked them in the GU pots, not really worried whether they lived or not. These of course have thrived.
Due to my fascination for miniature things I had high hopes for this guy and he was tagged as my favourite early on. Not so much anymore. He is still living which is a definate bonus but due to it's size and lack of anything exciting happening it has slipped into more of an average placing. I still have high hopes for it to be sure but I think a lot patience is required.

This one is my current favourite. It started out as excess to requirements as this was the mother plant that I stole the pup from. I couldn't quite bring myself to throw away a living plant though and since I had plenty of pots I whacked it in just to see what it would do. I figured if the first pup died I could steal the second one off this one.
Not only has this plant lived but it has grown which really quite surprised me and pleased me. After all it's one thing to keep things alive but quite another to know you are doing well enough for them to get bigger and better. Now all it has to do is produce a second pup and I'll pee my pants with pride haha
This is the bottom of the above pot. I really like having them in glass and watching the advancement of the roots below the surface. It's a bit of ritual now for me to lift it up and peer at it's underside before I water it now just to see what's new. I also like the glass jars because I can see when the entire soil is dry and that's when I water them. I'm pretty stingy with the water, I wait until they are entirely dry and then they get two teaspoons each pot. Usually once a week, sometimes less if I forget them.
While working in another garden the other day I thieved these guys from under a mass of weeds. They won't be missed and they make good free trial plants to replace the one I killed. I don't actually have much confidence in these guys but I will treat them the same as the others and see how we go. After all if they die they haven't cost me anything except a little time.
The twins round out the collection to 4 pots. These two were also thieved at the same time as the previous two. Again I'm not sure if they will do well but I rather hope so.
Do you have any indoor plants? Do they do well or are you as good as me at killing them off slowly?

3 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear your teacup one decided not to survive, maybe you'll find another one in one of the gardens for it.
    Watching the roots is fun x3 Mother plant is doing so well!
    Oh! I know a place with loads of pretty succulents maybe you could 'mooch very closely at' for babies XD That arboretum place out near kai iwi?

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  2. Ooh you sneaky beast! I hadn't even thought of that place. .. I might just have to do a 'photo mish' out there this arvo XD

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    1. Aha! I remember taking a bunch of pics of a really pretty pinky one and it's stuck in my mind! Hope you found a few x3

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