Hello! Welcome to the blog! Thank you for investing a sliver of your attention to me talking about my plants! Yeah, so, let’s talk about the weekend of June 20th. I spent most of my weekend hunkered down writing for various clients. But no matter what my weekends look like, my Saturday mornings remain reserved to tending after my plants. And this past Saturday, thankfully, was no exception.
My Saturday Morning Routine
My Saturday morning routine really just looks like me repeatedly dipping my fingers into soil for 40+ plants to make sure that nobody is parched or waterlogged.
Now that it’s summer, most of my plants need to be watered at least once a week, especially since I live in such an arid, scorchingly hot area. And especially since I’ve started collecting super thirsty plants to my collection, like calatheas, herbs, and ferns. I end up making dozens of rounds to my bathroom to fetch water. That’s MY weekend cardio.
Since I’ve abandoned my plant spreadsheet, I’ve also loosely designated Saturday as my fertilizer day, in which I’ll give my actively growing plants a drop or two of liquid fertilizer. Fertilizing is something I’ve only recently gotten into, but even the super basic Miracle-Gro all-purpose houseplant kind yields tangible results. My pothos and philodendron are really enjoying liquid fertilizer at the moment. My mom also recently gave me a little bit of those slow-release pellets, but they haven’t done much for me so far.
This weekend also consisted of some potting rework. It’s normal for me to switch cachepots several times a month. The only instances where I won’t switch around pots are when the nursery pot is too big or when the plant already lives inside a terra cotta pot. Reading Hilton Carter’s Wild at Home inspired me to try leveling some of my plants for visual interest, as well as clustering my pots by color scheme — white and green pots for my particle board shelf, browns for my mini wire shelf, and warm tones for the large shelving cart that I got from Target. I also switched out some of my plastic saucers. These lack style, but they do serve a purpose when I’m short on coasters and pots, which are expensive now that I can’t hit thrift stores as often.
Anyway, all of that ended up lasting two hours. It’s nice to get a moment away from the computer and just play around with the dirt, you know?
My Plants That Didn’t Make It
Unfortunately, plants that didn’t make it through the week include my lavender and lemon balm plants, which now reside in our yard waste bin. My dwarf banana plant is on the brink of death, but I’m holding out to see if it’ll continue pushing out new leaves. C’est la vie.
My Trip to the Nursery
I’ve been to Lowe’s a few times since the pandemic hit, but I hadn’t gone to my local nursery for three or four months. I live a short drive away from Rainforest Nursery, which is a charming, large warehouse with plenty of quaint home decor, gardening supplies, and, of course, plants. Reunited and it feels so good! Well, at least as good as one can feel with the leery undercurrent of a global pandemic.
Rainforest Nursery has a beautiful and wide selection of indoor and outdoor plants at fair prices. (Their succulent tent is super cute!) Their string of turtles and furry feather calathea definitely caught my attention, but I didn’t end up buying them because I wasn’t sure they were quite suited for my room. I left the store with just two basic items: a four-inch chocolate mint plant and a ten-inch terra cotta pot (now the new home of my monstera deliciosa).
Hope everyone is staying hydrated, masked, and healthy. Until next time, keep calm and grow on!
