Taking Root

Where are you growing? Journal

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Monstera Monday - leaf unfurling

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Ficus elastica growth 

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I’ve stolen most of my vases/glass containers from my mom. I wonder if she minds...

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Watercolor Adansonii Leaves for Monstera Monday

I made this into a repeating pattern for desktop & mobile backgrounds ✌ feel free to save for personal use! Have a magical monstera Monday, planty people 🖤

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I have my fair share of “designer” house plants lying around, but I have to give so much love and respect to my pothos’. My mom has grown pothos for as long as I can remember (I think she’s only ever had one pothos that she has simply propagated endless times), and it is such a classy plant. I have a couple different types of pothos, but my neighbor gave me this one before she moved, and I feel like that is almost unfair because this plant seriously is so beautiful.

Talk about an easy, forgiving plant that just keeps growing and growing. I also love the vine aesthetic...true jungle vibes.

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My musa banana is putting out another leaf, surprise surprise!

This plant is one of the easiest, most forgiving plants I own. And, unlike my ZZ (a plant that literally doesn’t care if I acknowledge it ever again), the banana actually puts out new growth very quickly. When I got my banana, it was a foot tall and had two leaves. I left it outside all summer, I remembered to water it maybe once every three weeks, and it is pushing three feet tall. 

10/10 recommend if you need positive reinforcement as a plant parent but aren’t the best at actually taking care of plants. But, be warned...she big.

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Got out for a lovely four miles on this Thanksgiving Day!

I haven’t been out for a run in about two weeks, and this felt wonderful. Love it

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Found this spider plant in the clearance section at Lowe’s, marked down from $15 to $5. The plant is super healthy, and I have no idea why it was marked down, but I didn’t ask questions. This is my first spider plant that has baby spiders, and I’m super psyched about it (it’s the small things, am I right?)

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The light changed to green as I was handing money to the homeless person sitting with his dog, and a car behind me laid on their horn.

What’s up with that?

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“Sorry I’m late for class...I gave my monstera a shower, and I needed to wipe the excess water off of each individual leaf before I could focus on anything else.”

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Monstera Deliciosa growth

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During the summer, the trees in my backyard are so full of leaves, my kitchen doesn’t get any light. I keep a Christmas cactus on the table, a ponytail palm on the fridge, and that’s it. I don’t know that I’ve ever noticed it before I had plants that need as much light as a monstera, but once those leaves have fallen off the trees, my kitchen gets all of the afternoon sun a tropical plant could wish for.

Catch me carrying my monstera from the front of my house to the back of my house everyday as the sun moves across the sky, I’m that kind of plant lady. 

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Doing a little experiment with my super sad crotons....

Maybe a year or two ago, my crotons started dropping leaves like crazy, and I kept burying the stems deeper and deeper in the soil. This fall, rather than just pushing the plants to the back of a shelf to wait out another season, I decided to take the plunge and chop the stems. I cut where the brown stem turned to green (roughly two inches beneath the leaves), dipped the newly cut tip in root hormone, and plopped them in these recycled tea tins my fiancé drilled holes into. (The leaves could for sure use a wiping down) I also decided to take the rest of the leafless stems and, rather than just throwing them away, see if they would grow new leaves too. So, I cut the two stems in half, dipped into some root hormone, and stuck them in dirt too. I realized the original plants had been grown from plugs, and it appeared the roots had been unable to get through the fabric, which would explain why my plants dropped their leaves. The roots were teeny tiny.

Anyway, if you were able to keep up, my experiment includes the following:

Two propagations that have leaves, but no roots (shown);

Two propagations that have roots (I cut the plug fabric off, so the roots are freeeee), but no leaves;

Two propagations that don’t have roots and don’t have leaves.

All of these are in zip-lock bag greenhouses, and they are sitting on the same surface to get the same amount of light. I’m confident that the propagations with leaves will grow roots, and I am very interested to see what the other propagations are capable of. 

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Ficus elastica and feline blackiticus

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Fall in New England

Thinking about our daily stroller walks through the crunchy leaves on this chilly November Sunday. There aren’t leaves left on the trees today, and it feels more like winter than fall. Missing our walks and looking forward to the season ahead. 

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You walked in, and my heart went BOOM

Sometimes the sun hits a plant so perfectly, and you just know it’s going to be a good day.