Plant advice, ramblings and experiments.

🌿☀️🪴

[araceae-advice]

This blog is meant to be an outlet to talk about my interest in plants, terrariums, and nature in general.

I love talking about what plants need and helping people improve their care. I live in the UK and mainly focus on growing plants indoors using grow lights.

Getting plants a proper grow light is the number one thing you can do to see them thrive indoors. This can be intimidating if you haven't considered it before, but it's a lot simpler that it seems at first glance. I'd be super happy to talk people through grow light selection and use. Right now I mostly use SANSI bulbs and Barrina T5 strips.

Many of the plants I'm currently interested in and actively learning more about are aroids, which is the inspiration for the blog name. My first love is definitely succulents though!

I have a vivarium which is home to springtails and isopods.

I'd love to interact with people about any of these topics, answer questions, hear about your own houseplants, etc!

[holespoles]

Botanical Applique Quilt by Chinami Terai (Japan)

寺井ちなみ「緑のヴァリエ」

[poop-me-a-flower]

Here’s TB Ambrosia of the Gods. It has a strong smell, like Smarties candy. The stalk is short this year, possibly because of the weather. This is also its first bloom so perhaps that has something to do with it. I’m hoping it increases well; it stands out well in the garden.

[araceae-advice]

Wow that is stunning

[araceae-advice]

At first, we filled this seed feeder with a seed mix, which included suet pellets. Some great tits got used to throwing all the seeds out of the feeder, sifting through to get the suet pellets. So we recently changed it to be filled entirely with sunflower seeds.

As you can see, this great tit hasn't gotten the memo and he spent several minutes constantly throwing seeds out of the feeder, looking for pellets which are not there, despite the existence of a perfectly good suet feeder right behind him.

He didn't give up until he saw a blue tit eat the suet smh. Hoping he gets over this soon. The robins and wood pigeons are gonna have a big clean up job in there.

[morganathewitch]

August and blue berries, Sweden.

[seabeck]

Wildflowers

[araceae-advice]

We got a LOT done today! Growing season prep is absolutely wild. Lots and lots of repotting and potting up bulbs.

The peppers are doing much better after their battle with thrips, and they've been upgraded to 3.8L fabric pots :)

We also potted up some caladium, begonia, dahlia, and oxalis! I bought 50 1L pots and I thought it was too many at the time but we've actually used most of them already :O

[queer-adhd]

Anyway sorry. Much the like the ancient peasant farmers i will have more free time once the planting season is over. Until the harvest season at least, at which point I will be very busy. Your best chances to talk to me are from October to February.

[queer-adhd]

See, I wish I was kidding but I have in fact spent around 7 hours so far today dealing with plants. I have further plant related jobs to do before I go to bed. Weekends are basically just the time I get to do the plant stuff I managed to put off throughout the week. Until these fucks are in the ground I'm basically booked up.

[queer-adhd]

Anyway sorry. Much the like the ancient peasant farmers i will have more free time once the planting season is over. Until the harvest season at least, at which point I will be very busy. Your best chances to talk to me are from October to February.

[araceae-advice]

We have a lovely patch of wood forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica) in an area of partial shade next to the fence. It's such a cute native wildflower!

[araceae-advice]

Prev anon here - thank you!! =D

No worries! Happy to share :D

[araceae-advice]

Hello! I am a plant newbie - what are the squiggly looking pots you've got stacked called? The ones with the strawberries?

These are our two strawberry planters! :)

[araceae-advice]

My baby ferns are doing so good 🥺 they're going to go in the shady bit behind the bench once they've grown up enough

I've always been fascinated with ferns, but killed a couple indoors years ago and got discouraged with them. After getting into semihydro for my houseplants, I got a bird's nest fern that has been doing really well in my north facing window though, I think the constant available moisture from semihydro really helps. That success made me feel brave enough to add a few ferns to our recent outdoor plants order, and I'm so happy it's going well so far!

They had basically no fronds when they arrived, and I know that's normal but I was so worried about them 😭

[beardedmrbean]

Sneefin and Snorfin time at the Hertfordshire Zoo

[joy-and-whimsy-official]

Joy and whimsy detected! These Sengi are joyful and whimsical!

[araceae-advice]

Strawberry order arrived!! They're soaking now for a couple hours and then after dinner we'll make a batch of soil mix for them and get them planted :)

[araceae-advice]

55 strawberry plants in two different planters are gonna need a fair amount of soil!

There's 60% regular top soil 40% composted fine bark as the base, then we added a bit of coco coir and perlite. Plus compost improver with mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria, and ecothrive soil ammendment to add lots of nutrients.

[boringlittleman]

My tired ass rn

[araceae-advice]

Strawberry order arrived!! They're soaking now for a couple hours and then after dinner we'll make a batch of soil mix for them and get them planted :)

[araceae-advice]

55 strawberry plants in two different planters are gonna need a fair amount of soil!

There's 60% regular top soil 40% composted fine bark as the base, then we added a bit of coco coir and perlite. Plus compost improver with mycorrhizal fungi and beneficial bacteria, and ecothrive soil ammendment to add lots of nutrients.

[araceae-advice]

Strawberry order arrived!! They're soaking now for a couple hours and then after dinner we'll make a batch of soil mix for them and get them planted :)