House Plants

Welcome to my home. 

This is one of my three clusters of house plants. In doing research for this post I found some studies that surprised me. The presence of plants has a measurable effect on the happiness and well-being of people. Whether the study involved interacting with plants or being in a room with plants, the effects were measurable even weeks after the initial experience took place. Plants make us feel better. I know that every time I look toward my wall of plants I feel joy, but I never thought science would back me up on this.

Even Meecho gravitates towards the plants

What I expected to find from my research was that plants purify the air. Again, surprise! The science on plants as air purifiers is inconclusive. They do have an effect in laboratory settings, but our homes circulate air so rapidly that their effect in purification might be minimal. Plants do emit humidity, which is good during a Canadian winter. With the house closed off and the heating on, this place can get very dry. I keep adding more plants to protect my cats from getting static electricity shocks to their noses. 

You'll find a million lists of the "9 Most Unkillable Plants" or the "5 Best Air Purifying Plants", so what I wanted to say was what you won't find anyone else saying: You don't have to spend money to get a wall of plants like mine! Plants want to live! They want to grow in all of the spaces. Sure, there will be plant deaths because you over watered one or put a shade loving plant in full sunlight, but with trial and error you can fill your space with plants for minimal investment. Here is how:

1. Get plants. Plants are easy to obtain for free. If you see a plant with branches or vines, just snap a bit off the end of a branch (three inches is enough to work with). When you get home cut the wound open again (as it will have dried out), remove the bottom leaves, and place in a glass of water. Refresh the water after a week and after a couple weeks the plant part will likely be growing roots in that water. 

 All but three of my house plants were propagated from plants of friends, family, fellow gardening club members, a cheeky snip of a plant in a restaurant, or grown from seeds from grocery store-bought fruit.

2. Put them in pots. You can now plant in a pot with soil, or a soilless mix. All of my plant pots were picked up from the side of the road on garbage day, or a friend or co-worker offered them to me when they were cleaning out their garage.The houseplant potting soil is the one of two purchases I have ever made for my house plants (the other being a water-solluble fertiliser but a lot of people don't bother with this). A huge bag of soil mix cost me $9 and I'm not even halfway through using it. 

3. Water. The most common cause of houseplant death is over-watering. A good way to prevent over-watering is to let the plants exhibit signs of wilting. This can trigger flowering in plants that flower. With practice you'll get comfortable with ignoring your plants until they show you stress signs. If a plant looks unhealthy but the soil is wet don't even think about giving it more water! If it looks unhealthy and the soil is dry, go ahead and water.

If you're not sure whether you can spot a healthy plant from an unhealthy plant, don't worry. Get a plant and through trial and error you will learn what it wants.

4. Light. This is pretty tricky. Plants want to be somewhere bright, but not be cooked in direct sunlight. Some like shade, or partial shade, or partial light, or full light. Frankly, they can be pretty picky. My solution to this is to choose a place for the plant and leave it there for 3 weeks. If it looks unhappy and the reason isn't over- or under-watering then I move the plant to a new location that receives either more or less light. Some kinds of plants are very picky and will die quickly. Others just stay stagnant and don't grow until they find the right spot. I have a lipstick plant that stayed the same size for a full year and just grew darker and darker in colour until a couple months ago I finally moved it to a place it likes. Now it is growing lovely bright green leaves and branches. We needed to have patience with each other but finally we can both be happy.

5. Propagate. Now that your plant is happy and growing, take cuttings from the ends of the branches and vines. Or if you have plants like Aloe Vera which make babies that grow from the roots, harvest these babies and put them in their own pot. Grow your army of plants and gift them to friends and family. 

Cover the world in plants!

Welcome Mantis, bring your friends

I kept my word and have been watering my plants every evening, when possible. I had to miss a night here and there due to either social events or back pain, but overall my plants have been spoiled these past two weeks and they love it!

I see lots of new wood, new leaves, and the largest surprise of all- a few days after I started regular watering, the insects that were eating the leaves nearly all disappeared. One exception is one apple tree was attacked by several hundred miniature caterpillars, but after a bit of squishing they seem to have disappeared too.

Best of all- it finally rained yesterday. A welcome relief during our summer or drought.

There haven't been many pictures lately of Eden's Rise and that is because of how brown, crispy, and dead the field looks. The only colour comes from my trees and the particularly drought resistant golden rod that has taken possession of the bottom of the field. 

And yet life carries on. I don't know anything about snake life cycles but there are some miniature snakes hanging out near my asparagus and I assume they must be some recent hatchlings. I love snakes, and I am happy that having left the grass long means that they feel comfortable having a habitat in my garden. 

There are also voles, or some kind of fluffy round ball animals. They make holes and run away in a flash of dark fur when I approach them. They don't seem particularly destructive, but I don't appreciate when they make their holes right through the roots of my newly planted trees. They likely don't appreciate me planting trees right through their newly dug holes.

Today I made a new friend: a praying mantis! 

At first I was horrified, all my knowledge about praying mantises came from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Xander was nearly eaten by a large Praying Mantis Demon Lady. Still, I had an idea that it was probably not eating my plants and likely even a welcome visitor for my garden. A quick google search when I got home confirmed it. It seems they have enormous appetites for aphids, mosquitoes, caterpillars, and a bunch of other bugs I have no immediate love for. Suddenly I love my new freaky insect friend, and I hope she invites all her friends over for a party! 

Have a lovely week, and take some time to look at nursery catalogues. If you want to start your own orchard or want to plant flower bulbs, then fall is a great time to plant. 

Lessons

Things have been a bit bleak lately. My plums are being massacred by insects, my strawberries are being ripped up by neighbouring horses, my blueberries look like they're burning from the leaf edges, my grapes are stunted. 

It's all my fault.

I frequently visit other people's orchards. Usually they are an abandoned side project and I've been proud to see that for the most part my trees look like those in orchards that were planted several years ago. My bubble burst when I visited my best friends who planted their orchard at the same time as I planted mine. Their trees have at least twice as much new wood, three times more leaves, and no apparent evidence of insect damage. 

I hated them.

Only briefly. (C'mon, a little jealousy keeps you human!)

Their orchard is very near their house, which allows them to water it daily. They need to. Their soil is sandy and has trouble holding water. Daily water and the endless heat and sunshine that we've had this summer are the perfect recipe for plant growth. 

I've started a new job this summer and with the busy whirl of finding my feet in a job that has me travelling around the province I've been neglectful of my orchard. I've only been watering Eden's Rise once a week, sometimes even less. No wonder my trees are being ravaged by insects, curling their leaves up, turning yellow, and my two weakest plants (weak since being planted too early and getting a hard knock by the frost) have finally died. 

I realised that far from being on par with those older orchards, I was on the road to having my orchard stunted and looking much as it does now even 4 years from now when ideally I should be in full production. Tough love is not what these young trees need.

Like a procrastinator who has realised the deadline is now only 2 days away I've been pushed into action by panic. I have been watering my orchard every day for 4 days now. To see change overnight seemed too good to be true and yet change is here!

My elderberry plants have added an inch of new wood in 3 days, my plum which had lost 60% of its leaves to insect damaged has now sneezed out a huge tuft of new leaves which totally hides the half eaten massacre within. The blueberries with crusty leaf edges are pushing out some fresh green leaves and the grapes which have been lacking in action nearly all summer have finally sent enough tentacles to reach the first wire of my trellis (about 4 feet) (not all of them, some varieties seem to be struggling more than the rest). 

Seeing an immediate result to my extra work is exactly what I needed for morale. I should have known thirsty plants don't have the energy to fight off predators, etc.

Things will be back on track now at Eden's Rise. It may take 2 hours a night to water my orchard, but let's face it. What else would I be doing?

Have a lovely week!

-Eden