Tag: houseplants

Windowsills and Shelves

We’ve reached that point of the year when I’ve run out of room on the windowsills as a mismatched collection of plant pots and trays jostle for space. There are courgette and sunflower seedlings, and a tray of lavatera and calendula seedlings that I started inside after the wildflower mix that I sowed in the flowerbeds were mown down by slugs and snails, and even a pot of grass for our housecat, Mara.

The seedlings that I started off inside may be safe from the usual garden pests, but Mara isn’t above taking a nibble out of any leaves in her vicinity, and I lost a whole tray of sweetpeas and a courgette seedling to a curious and over-enthusiastic toddler, then snapped another courgette seedling stem myself when I was repotting it.

May is usually a fair month, but the weather has actually been quite mixed, with some warm and sunny days, some showers, and a lot of cool, overcast days, and most of my seedlings have grown a bit leggy as they stretch and strain to reach the sun which has so often been hiding behind the clouds.

It’s been a few years since I’ve posted about our houseplants and there have been some new arrivals and at least as many departures since then. We currently have seven spider plants (by far the easiest houseplant to care for), six of which are descendents from the original plant, that produced so many spiderettes that I ended up giving them away to family, friends and work colleagues. We also have a string of hearts plant that is hopelessly tangled and coiled around itself to prevent the strings from tickling our heads when we sit on the couch underneath it, but it’s another low-maintenance favourite that I’d love to try propagating.

On the stair windowsill are two burros tail succulents, which are the succulents that I’ve had the most success at keeping alive (as all the echeveria have died off and I’ve no plans to replace them), though I also love the Purple Graptopetalum that I bought at a Cactus and Succulent Sale at the Botanic Gardens a couple of years ago and that I’ve recently had some luck at propagating from fallen leaves.

I do like having a house full of plants, but very much hoping that the weather improves soon so I can start hardening off the seedlings and plant them outside, but in the meantime I’ll continue tending them inside until they’re strong enough to survive the vagaries of Scottish weather. Have a lovely week. X

Winter Gardening Indoors & Out

Unlike many people, I don’t dislike January, it’s a peaceful month to recover from the excesses of the festive period and ease into a new year. Unfortunately, I don’t feel quite as charitable about February, which I find frigid and inhospitable while I’m impatiently waiting for spring to begin.

snowdrop

I dug up the Iris Reticulata and Snowdrop bulbs last year with the intention of relocating them but then didn’t get around to it, which will make winter feel even longer as we might not see many flowers until April when the tulips appear. I must have missed one of the snowdrops though, and it was a pleasant surprise to spot the little flash of white in the border.

buddha and bamboo

At this time of year, I’m desperately grateful for the greenery that the bamboo (Fargesia Robusta) provides while the trees are still bare, and it looks lovely edged with white when it snows. We’ve also treated ourselves to a little Buddha statue with vouchers the in-laws gave us for Christmas to add a little Zen to the border.

I’ve been enjoying watching the birds that visit our feeding station over the winter. We seem to have a multi-generational family of sparrows living in our hedge and a pair of blue tits that nest by the side of the house every year, as well as the odd robin and black bird that visit.

Inside our home, we’ve been enjoying the warmth and coziness of our woodburner most evenings, and I’ve been tending our little houseplant collection, which I’m often guilty of neglecting during the warmer months when most of my time and attention is focused on the garden. I was very excited to notice that two of the Echeveria seem to be growing flowering stems, especially as their once red and pink edges have faded to the leaftips. Have a lovely week! X

Pottering around with houseplants

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Winter still hasn’t given way to spring yet in our part of the country, and another snowfall at the weekend prevented us from making a start in the garden, but I’ve been pottering around the house tending my little collection of houseplants instead.

Our house is a long way from becoming one of the lush urban jungles to be found on Instagram, and I’ve killed more plants than I’d like to admit but I’ve gradually collected and nurtured a little selection of succulents, ferns, fittonia and, of course, a seemingly infallible spider-plant. Decorating the plant pots was a rainy day project – though like all my crafts they’re a bit rough around the edges.

As our cat, Mara, is a nibbler, we only have plants that are safe for pets, and the ASPCA provide helpful lists of toxic and non-toxic plants.

I’ve had no luck at all propagating succulents, but I’ve had much more success propagating spiderettes from the spider-plant. I’ve already given one to my dad, another to my best friend, and I’ve just potted up a few more to give to a couple of friends and my husband, who wants one for his desk at work.

Baby spider plants
Cayenne pepper

Determined not to repeat some of the rookie mistakes we made last year, I’ve started our courgettes and squash plants off inside. I’m also attempting to grow chilli peppers from seed; the cayenne seedlings have already surfaced, and I’m hoping the poblano will sprout soon too.

Meanwhile in the garden…

Pottering6

Have a lovely week! X

 

A Safe Haven

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Mara helping us pack

We are in the middle of moving, and as we pack up our belongings, I know I will miss this place. The little home my husband and I rented for three years and seven months was our first home together and the setting of so many memories and milestones in our relationship. It seems to me that a home is whatever you make it: it could be a battleground, a dumping ground or a safe haven. Our home has been all of these at different stages of our relationship.

Our home was a battleground as we clashed over money, housework and competing priorities when we first moved in together. Although we have resolved most of those early conflicts, whenever we have something contentious to discuss now, we find a neutral space like a café or a park, and the discussion ends before we step through our front door.

We used to wipe our feet on the doormat, but tramped the day’s emotional dirt through our home. It became littered with the ghosts of all of our stresses, sorrows and frustrations. Now we understand that we don’t have to bring these issues inside, and our home can be a safe haven away from our troubles. As well as the emotional detritus, we treated it like a dump for our possessions. Our home was already furnished when we moved in, and once we’d squeezed our own things into it, the cupboards and drawers were bursting and there wasn’t a single clear surface to be found. It took us a little while to realise that we didn’t need more space but less stuff, and we have been gradually downsizing and decluttering over the last few months.

We’ve become more intentional about what we keep and what we buy now. When our electric kettle broke, we replaced it with a stove-top whistling kettle; it’s a little reminder to slow down in an impatient world. We also treated ourselves to a few house plants (after researching which plants wouldn’t poison our curious house-cat); I don’t know if they purify the air but having greenery around is calming.

It seems odd, but what I’ll miss most is the scratched, old dining table (featured in many photos on this blog), around which my husband and I shared meals, wrote our Christmas cards and wedding invitations, played board games with friends, and where I typed most of these posts. I suspect our landlords would let us have the dining table and chairs if we asked, yet I’m leaving them behind, because I’m keeping all the memories.

A roof over our heads and walls to shelter us is something many of us take for granted, but others are not so fortunate. Over the last three and a half years we have learned to protect our home from physical and emotional clutter in return for the safe haven it provides from storms of all kinds, and these are the lessons we’ll take with us wherever we live. Have a lovely week.