My Green Children

I practically never get anything posted here, but it doesn't mean I'm not doing something. I just never feel like I have anything to report. I realized, though, that I can post a GREAT extra that's actually on theme for me.

I've been pretty excellent at killing plants throughout my life. How excellent? I was once given an army of cacti. I managed to kill half by overwatering them and half by underwatering them. I'm good. But, I love plants. I love being in them and seeing their greenery and just in general having a great time bonding with plants.

So imagine my pleasure that I've finally managed to grow a bunch of plants at home and work. They're all doing fairly well, too! I thought I'd just share my success with everyone :)  

In advance (especially for my mom), I apologize for the lighting quality. The plants are in windows and are pretty difficult to move. I took the photos before work one day, so the light wasn't fantastic.

These are the plants at my office. They're doing astonishingly well when you consider they haven't seen natural light in forever. I have a spider plant (named Gwildor), two ivies, a diffenbachia, and a pothos.

Now on to the little guys at home!

 Sorry about the weird picture shape. That's from an exciting rotation.

I thought it'd be best to have a more vertical plant rather than something artsy.

 A coworker gave me this tomato plant 2 weeks ago. It was already pretty established, but I've kept it alive. Also, look!

Tomato flowers! I may have homegrown tomatoes yet! They've all blossomed while in my care, so I must be doing something right.

Now for the inside plants.

 

It's backlit, but these are my plants. I like this view because you can see both the avocado leaves up top and the marble-leaf ivy trailing. Here's another view of them.

The avocado isn't very visible here, but if you look along the top, you can see his little leaves.

Here's an overhead view showing you everything. I have a spider plant, 2 succulents, 2 pothos, a marble-leaf ivy, an aloe named Hermione, an avocado I grew from a seed, a wandering jew, and an asparagus fern. Mostly I can name them from what their tags say or what people have identified them as. I'm actually due to get a jade plant sometime soon. My friend's husband is graciously propagating one for me.

This picture is just a funny angle, but you get a great view of the avocado.

 About half the plants I grew from clippings myself, half people gave me fairly established little guys. Also, the avocado (as mentioned previously) was grown from seed. He's had a rough time of it, but mostly he's doing great.

The final guys at home are some herbs I started from a little kit I bought last October.

Clockwise from top left: parsley, oregano, basil, and cilantro. These guys are paler than I'd like, so I don't know what to do to help them get dark green. I'm mostly ignoring them except sometimes watering them.

I typically don't single out specific plants at home because I don't want to have favorites, but this guy is brand new to our family, so I wanted to show him off.

This is my new (fuzzy) wandering jew. My friend's husband is probably a tough love kind of gardener. He's also quite successful, especially with houseplants. He has a spider plant that has produced upwards of 48 spiderette babies. He can't give them away fast enough. He has some jade plants and other plants I can't identify. His wandering jew, though, is quite interesting. He says a year and a half ago he started with this kind of clipping. His plant is now fairly large. He keeps it trimmed and bush-like instead of trailing. I'm pretty excited for my new little guy. With luck, he too will be massive in a year or year and a half.
 

So these are my little green children I've finally figured out how to grow. I've been slowly collecting them all for the last 2-ish years. I'm very pleased with them. I hope I manage to keep them alive!