Kat

a 20 year-old northern californian finding happiness by staring at plants and curating an aesthetic photo collection of said plants

[katlikesplants]

8.27.20

an old view with a new plant in a new setup. this is my first time hanging a plant and the curtain rod was super convenient for me because i like in an apartment where i can’t drill holes

[katlikesplants]

7.1.20

new terrarium!

fun fact: venus fly traps naturally grow in only one place on earth, and it’s a tiny swamp in north carolina. i visited it –very excited– and found it incredibly underwhelming because these plants are rarely more than three inches tall.

the hardest part of building a terrarium for me is finding a container large enough for a plant to live it’s (hopefully) entire life in without breaking the bank. venus fly traps pretty much eliminate that issue.

this terrarium is the second simplest one i’ve made with just activated charcoal at the bottom –no pebbles, sponge moss, sand, etc. i’m especially anti-sponge moss in terrariums because it ends up rotting anyway.

[katlikesplants]

5.19.20

calathea pool party with my newest plant baby:

calathea white fusion

[katlikesplants]

5.13.20

procrastinating doing a final assignment by repotting and shooting these graptoveria opalina babies

[katlikesplants]

5.5.20

mirror me

[katlikesplants]

4.30.20

this is one of the best cheap plants i’ve ever purchased from a chain garden store – the thimble cactus

[katlikesplants]

4.24.20

“angel wing”

moderate water and full sun; this plant would make great ground cover

i didn’t touch the saturation when editing, this plant is really that white

[katlikesplants]

4.23.20

thinking about this little prickly thing that i posted when i first started my blog

[katlikesplants]

4.21.20

this post is all about how i rejuvenated one of my pilea peperomiodes after struggling with it for nearly six months.

i’ve propagated and cared for many pileas over the years without any issues and i became pretty confident about my pilea-keeping skills as a result. so when this one started showing signs of being less-than-healthy, i assumed that there was something wrong with the plant and it couldn’t be my fault.

i was confidently wrong :(

eventually i caved in and googled what was wrong with her, and found out she needed some fertilizer. i had never used fertilizer before, so i bought the wrong kind and within a few weeks it got incredibly moldy and nearly killed my plant.

then i moved back home for quarantine, where i keep my 40g fancy goldfish tank. in the jar, there is the NASTIEST stuff to ever come out of an aquarium. it’s the buildup of broken down poop and uneaten food that accumulates in the filter — and the plants love it.

in the second photo, you can see a pre-fish-poop-water leaf on the lower left, and a post-fish-poop-water leaf on the upper right. i’ve been giving her a very diluted version of what’s in the jar and she’s bounced back like nothing ever happened.

i highly recommend trying this for anyone who is in both the plant and aquarium hobby, and i’ll post an update on this in a few months!

[katlikesplants]

4.12.20

this is a photo from a while back of a tillandsia tectorum ecuador that i bought in santa cruz, ca.

later i’ll be posting about a little experiment that i’m doing to try to find the best way to water this plant! stay tuned :)

[katlikesplants]

4.2.20

bath time this morning

on the left is a calathea orbifolia, and on the right is a pothos snow queen

most calathea species, including this one, don’t tolerate tap water. she was in the sink this morning just so she could drain in there

variegated species of plants like this pothos actually require more light than their fully-pigmented relatives. without enough light, their bright white “color” (or lack there of) could shift into a more yellowy-white coloration or even completely revert back to green. on the other hand, direct sunlight can easily burn areas with less pigment. finding a good light balance for these plants can be tricky!

[katlikesplants]

3.30.20

being in quarantine has given me a lot of time to focus on my plants and be extra excited about new leaves. i hope to be posting more on here during this time, so stay tuned!

[katlikesplants]

11.11.19

putting off buying a propagation station from amazon paid off when i found a few of these little numbers from a tiny plant shop in downtown petaluma, ca

🌱

⚪️

[katlikesplants]

12.3.18

this is where babies come from pt.2

[katlikesplants]

11.24.18

cloudy skies and purple graptoveria

[katlikesplants]

4.7.18

[katlikesplants]

What are some resources for beginners with cacti? I've started a terrarieam (can't spell ugh) but I'm not sure what other information and research to find or use.

Yes! Online forums and visual guides from Pinterest are what really helped me get started. The basics for cacti are to make sure it gets plenty of direct sunlight and generous waterings only when the soil is completely dry.

Hope this helps, happy planting :)