My Green-Less Thumb!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I don’t know what to do! I love plants. I love how they “complete” a home. I like how they seem to freshen the air. The problem is I have never been very successful in…errr…keeping them alive. My mom bought me a bunch of plants as a christmas/houswarming present a couple of weeks ago and they are already starting to die. I water them constantly, open the blinds before I go to work so they can get sunshine, I play lots of music and have even resorted to talking to them lately. Yet slowly, day by day, the leaves have been drooping, wilting and falling off. What can I do?

“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching

2

A tip from the frugal thread: eggshells crushed in the soil.

A tip from the guy stuff tread: don’t give them any liquor harder than 40 proof.

Seriously, at my old apartment I could find plants in any condition: dying, dead, rotted (maybe not rotted) and make them thrive. New apartment even kills lichen. Not fungus or soap scum though. Any sort of plant life dead within a week. Even turned our animals evil. Eviler, anyway.

Escape is at hand

3

You said you water them constantly, maybe too much? I use a birth control pill disolved in warm water and whoa do those babies grow. My plants have become fertile myrtles.

We are, each of us angels with only one wing,and we can only fly by embracing one another

4

Your plants are dying from root rot. As the root system begins to die it can no longer support lush foliage. The leaves begin to turn yellow and drop off giving the illusion that more water is necessary. STOP watering right now!!
There is no such thing as a green thumb. Just follow some simple rules and your plants will be just fine.
Until you learn how your soil should feel purchase a cheap water sensor at any garden shop. It will let you know when to water. Make sure your house plants were “shade grown” and avoid direct sun from windows. Use a small amount of Miracle grow or other water soluble fertilizer and read the label! Plants are really easy to grow once you learn a small amount of botany. Almost always, if in doubt do nothing. Did I mention Stop Watering Now?

Not so fast, you mucko!

5

oh, yes, hon, stop the water! in fact, if the soil feels soggy when you stick a finger in, get some new soil & repot. new soil will not only soak up some of the excess water you have now, it will help eliminate bugs that you are also encouraging. several mites, fungi & other teeny-tiny critters looove wet soil.

it helps some to group the plants until they get going. it creates a micro-climate. after they are established, you can move them around. as 10speed said, no direct sunlight, unless they are flowering. non-flowering are far easier to grow indoors, tho. pothos, asparagus fern, coleus, spider plant. ivies & violets can be cranky.

i have a lush garden & house plants. have had one pothos for over 10 yrs. gets so outrageously long i have to cut it back every 2-3 yrs. i’ve trained it to not expect water more often than once or twice/month, if i think of it then.

i also grow orchids inside & water them way less than recommended.

outside i have tropicals even tho i live in the desert. my navel orange tree produces monster fruit. i have an 8’ tall fern & a 6’ tall chrysanthemum.

but the water thing is absolutely what is killing 'em. please stop.

The purpose of life is to matter, to count, to have it make a difference you lived at all.

6

Excellent advice tenspeed. I had a really bad habit of overwatering and putting my plants in direct sunlight. When I complained to my mother-in-law, she told me to stop watering all the time and move them to diffused light or shade. What a difference! Buy a plant book and you won’t go wrong :slight_smile:
Zette

Love is like popsicles…you get too much you get too high.

Not enough and you’re gonna die…
Click here for some GOOD news for a change Zettecity

7

I think this is the problem I’ve been having. I have this spider plant that stays alive, but simply does not grow. I only water it once a week and I keep it out of the direct sunlight. I even moved it to a bigger pot with fresh soil, but this thing is still the same size as when I got it a year ago. I guess it just doesn’t want to grow up.

Another question…I got some sort of fern tree for Christmas. The guy I bought it from said to keep it out of the direct sun and to water it at least every other day because it requires a lot of water to survive. It would be doing fine, except for the fact that my cat will not leave it alone. She is constantly eating it, jumping in it, knocking the whole plant over, etc. Is there something I could spray on the plant that would discourage the cat from eating it, yet would be safe for the plant itself?

Shadowfox
“We are what we pretend to be.”

  • Kurt Vonnegut
8

Oh, before I forget, it has to be safe for the cat too.

Shadowfox
“We are what we pretend to be.”

  • Kurt Vonnegut
9

shadow, the spider plant may have just been getting used to the surroundings. it should do something–like grow & put out flower stalks–in the spring. you might try a mild fertilizer, ‘miracle grow’ or ‘root juice’. you can even spray the plant leaves.

my cats leave my plants alone, so i’m no help there. you might try asking at your local nursery or calling your state extension office. the master gardeners there have lots of suggestions. or ask your vet or call the local zoo, maybe. or hit the library for a book on either plants or cats.

The purpose of life is to matter, to count, to have it make a difference you lived at all.

10

Not knowing the name of the plant, I can’t advise you on how to raise it…

Intersting, best plant for new people is mother in laws tongue. You can over water it, over feed it, etc & it just thrives.

keep the plants out of direct sunlight BTW. stickyou finger in the pot to see if it needs water.

11

Wow, thanks for all the advice guys. Tenspeedjohn, I bet that is the problem! I have been watering them every day almost. I get nervous when I see the top of the soil getting dried out, but the leaves and stalks are just slipping out, very easily, from the root. I hope it’s not too late for them. What is a good frequency for watering?

“Teaching without words and work without doing are understood by very few.”
-Tao Te Ching

12

Water when you stick your finger in the soil and it feels dry. I mean really dry. If it’s moist at all, some will stick to your finger, don’t water if you come up with a dirty finger. (Insert finger to about the first knuckle.)

You may also want to try just misting the leaves with a spray bottle couple of days or so, if the urge to water is too strong to resist at first.

13

oh, dear, if you mean you can just lift the whole plant out of the ground, it may be too late. do try repotting, just to get the waterlogged roots in drier soil.

if the plant pots are the kind that sit in another dish, when you do water, dump out any excess in the dish that hasn’t been reabsorbed after an hour or so.

forgetting you have plants is a good rule of thumb, actually, once you stabilize them. certainly water no more often than 1/wk. & talking is supposed to actually be good. puts a little more oxygen in the general vicinity of the plants. minor help, but maybe it will be like chewing gum instead of smoking. talk instead of water.

14

If the stems pull out forget it. Just throw it away and start again. It’s too much work to get them to re-root.
If you buy new plants and save this thread, you should do fine.
As to cats, a product is available that contains pheremones that will discourage pets. I would apply it to the pot and not directly to the plant. Pets have very sensitive noses and that should suffice. I bought some at Home Depot once.

Handy, in South Florida there is escaped mother-in-law’s tongue all over the place. It seems to like the beach areas especially. You can’t even kill it with Round-up. It’s one tough sucker!

Not so fast, you mucko!

15

Two words: FAKE PLANTS

I have a black thumb. If it’s green, I can kill it faster than a shot of Round Up.

Repeat: fake plants

16

Good advice from everyone, and practical advice (if everything else fails) from OldBroad.

I’ve always loved African violets but couldn’t keep them alive or blooming. Then a friend from Texas sent me some BR-61 plant food (I couldn’t find it here), and special pots for violets – the pots have a reservoir so you always water from the bottom, which is what violets like.

Incredible success! One violet came back from the dead with new leaves in just a week or so, and the other is blooming almost continually.

So if you wanna do violets, get BR-61 and the special pots.

17

Dem: I just have to say, cut back on the water dude! :). For my plants, I water when the soil is dry an inch or more below the soil surface. THe most common way people kill house plants is overwatering.

I have several plants I have been able to keep alive indoors, perhaps they would be suitable for some of you to try (they aren’t fussy at all):

  • Dieffenbachia. I obtained this one from a cutting that my Bro’s GF threw out and I revived. I’ve been growing it in just tap water, and it’s still alive (the roots are over a foot an a half long). I did cut off the top to get it to sprout more stems and it’s sprouting right now. I cut off one of the older sprouts and planted it in soil. VERY easy to take care of.

-Chamaedorea seifrizii (Bamboo Palm). This plant is tough. I’ve often let it get drier than it should and neglected it (even though it’s right near my desk) and the sucker is still alive (it’s unfurling a few leaves right now). It had lovely deep green feather type leaves, and bamboo looking stems. It gives a nice tropical look to a room.

It forms basal shoots, and I cut one off so I now have a second plant (grows as a multistemmed plant). It will even thrive in a small pot (well, smaller than you think it would like). I’ve had it for at least three years, and it’s still not more than 4 feet high. It also is listed as a great plant for filtering toxic substances out of the air.

  • Musa acuminata “Sumatrana” (Blood Leaf Banana). Yes, I know what you might be saying “A banana indoors?”. Oh yes, I have had it indoors for a month and a half. As long as I keep it watered it is happy. Bananas are water guzzlers and I have to water every three days.

I accidentally let it go too dry a week or two ago, and the red variegation was non existent on the following leaves (the leaves should have deep red blotches that look like blood spots :)). Now it has these odd sword shaped leaves (but it has the correct coloring on those). Anyway, as long as it’s kept moist, and in a bright room it’s happy. It is going outdoors when the danger of frost passes (we don’t get harsh frosts here, but I just dont want the leaves frost burned and ugly). These plants put out a new leaf about once a week.

  • Zingiber officinale (Culinary Ginger) I am growing this in a small tub indoors. It finally is putting out some shoots. I want to see what it’s leaves look like, and get free ginger. It took a while before it started to do anything, but it’s starting to grow now.
    Anyway, those are the plants I have indoors. They all thrive if I dont baby and pamper them. The palm, and Dieffenbachia seem to thrive on neglect, and the banana and ginger just demand moist soil.

Another thing, Soxfan, what is the Scientific name of your fern? I cant give you cultural info unless I know what the latin name is. Tree ferns here dont demand tons of water (but they like moist soil). I’ve seen thrm growing with some amount of neglect.

Oh and Dem, if all the stems are pulling out easy, throw yer plant away and start over. there is no way to save a plant that is that rotted (even good gardeners suffer some losses).

One last thing: When you talk plants, please, if you can, add in the Botanical name. It helps a lot if you do add them in, along with the common name.

It’s worth the risk of burning, to have a second chance…

18

Shadowfox, get rid of the fern. Ferns of many varieties are poisonous to cats. Here’s a website for a pretty comprehensive list of plants that are toxic to cats… http://www.cfainc.org/articles/plants.html

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank

19

Wait a minute, toxic to cats? Sounds like a great plant to me. Get rid of the cat.

Not so fast, you mucko!

20

My mother is a gardener extraordinare - every few months when I was still living in Australia I would make the journey to her place and she would bring all the plants which I had reduced to a withered, dried out virtually dead state back to life. She would then give me a new one to see whether I could cling onto it. No luck. Every time I went back I would see old plants that I had almost killed thriving in lush greeness in her yard waiting to be passed on to my brother who also has a way with plants.
Sometimes I water too much she says
Sometimes I water too little
basically I can’t do it.
Now over here in London I have just binned another plant - I don’t have anyone to rescue them from me. I don’t know what to do - I love plants. I could not stand to have a fake one, but I feel sorry for all these ones that I am killing through uselessness.
Oh woe is me.
Any thoughts on a REALLY hardy plant that is also pretty??