Do you have any houseplants? Why did you pick your plant? How long have you had it? Do you do anything special for it? Do you talk to your plants?

I have a aloe now for about 6 years, ihave had to replant it three times now, I love desert plants, i am a sag with an Aries moon so maybe I resonate with this? I just got a yucca. I have had bamboo and jade. I really like cactus but have never owned any. I live in Michigan so I think if I go to fire/desert than I will jinx myself. But I do love desert plants.

No, I use to but when I moved I had to get rid of them.

BTW I am going to bed now,  I thought this thread said Do You Have Any Indoor Planets  

JB - I remember reading something about your chart, you and I are like astrotwins! :)

I have a couple houseplants, mostly vines and a succulent inside. Outside, I have a baby fig and some desert cacti. I love desert plants too. :)

I have a couple: a peace lily, a schefflera, some pothos, and a calla lilly.  The oldest is the schefflera; he was a gift from my grandmother when I got my first apartment 12 years ago and lord only knows how long she had him before that.  I think she said he was 6 or so.  :)  The peace lily is about seven years old, the pothos five-ish, and the calla lily was a gift on my most recent birthday (less than a year).

I used to have a monkey plant that was taken from my other, maternal grandmother's house when she died.  It was nearly 30 years old and we didn't take it in one night and it got frostbitten.  :/

i have a yuca that has been with me for 6 years..  it isn't too happy now with the recent move.  i may send her to a friends house for the interim. 

i also have a norfolk pine that has been with me just as long..  i decorate her for christmas each year. 

and variegated sansivieria, maranta and syngonia, and a dragon wing begonia

but my favorite are my collection of succulents.  i don't have any thorned cactus, just succulents..  but there are at least 15 varieties from jade to kalanchoe and aloe and all in between.  the aeonium arboreum warnekaii is very special to me.  some are in pots by themselves, other are in small "desert gardens"

i also have two types of tradescantia, one from the greenhouse i used to manage, another from a friends mother who brought it from puerto rico. and two types of climbing philodendron, one variegated and the other soft leaved and pink. 

and i keep a veriegated ivy and a fern as well.

but my last bit of helxine died a few weeks back..  the squirels got to it this summer and it slowly faded away. 

my mother grows african violets

my father has spider plants he got from his mother, that she got from her mother that came from italy.. he also keeps jade and aglaonema

they are like my family..  they've been with me for so long. 

I love my indoor plants!

I don't have any that are very old because life intervened and I had to give them away a few years ago. I think the oldest are 2 african violets and the Ming Aralia. I bought them to put in my room in the homeless shelter back in '09. Even homelessness wasn't going to stop me for very long from having plants in my personal space.

I have a Jade, Ming Aralia, 2 Rabbits Foots Ferns, an orchid close to rebloom (my first ever!!!), pothos, and a few others. I'm also rooting out some christmas cactus that my daughter brought back from my parents place in December! They sat in a tiny dark cardboard jewelry box for about 3 weeks before I found them and then I took 2 that looked the least wilted and dead and put them in a tiny bit of water. Wouldn't you know I've got roots! Woohoo! I love that kind of resilience!

Outside I have a patio garden ( I don't have a yard) and I have two aloe's out there that seem to be wintering over well on the patio that is protected. I also have a corkscrew rush outside that I'm madly in love with!

@ Jennifer - Fig!!! I want a fig tree. It might survive this climate. I have a small lemon tree on my back patio that is wintering over well.

I have many orchids and hoya.

Also a big Norfolk Island pine and a big dracaena and a gigantor monstera and some palms.

this is the last batch of succulent gardens i made..  they were rejects from work.  it's nice to work with plants and flowers.... (except when valentine's day is coming)

ooh kr..  has your monstera ever bloomed?  there was one in the greenhouse i used to manage that had been there over 15 years...  it had actually taken root in the gournd beneath it and would flower and bear fruit. the fruit looks like a large green ear of corn, but kinda spiny, and they taste like a pinacolada!!

Wow I am so impressed! I can't believe how long you all have had some of your plants! I thought 6 years was a long time!

Jennifer, yes we must be close twins! My name is Jennifer too! Lol.. I have scop asc with Saturn Pluto, cap merc ven. Nice too officially meet you. :)

Rejects from work :( makes me want to cry. Poor plants. I can only imagine how much valentines day must suck!

It hasn't bloomed! I have seen them blooming in the wild and would really like to make it happen someday. I've been trying to force it to by keeping it kind of pot-bound but no dice so far! They are so weird, I love all the aerial roots.

you would be horrified at the sheer quantity of plants and cut flowers i simple have to throw out because they have been in the store too long and are past prime.  everything could either be kept for at least another week (cuts) or could be revived..  but our contract is based on guaranteed sale, and the client corporation requires we destroy all product we don't sell (they refuse to let anyone have something if they aren't going to get a dime, greedy fucks)..  they won't even permit the slightly living flowers to be donated to a nursing home where they might bring joy to an elderly woman for a couple days.  everything gets thrown in the dumpster.  the few things i have gotten from work were smuggled out in the bottom of my bag, and it's been over a year since i last did that. 

@luckyduck - Mine is a striped Panache, it's an old slow-growing variety. Figs do really well out here, the missionaries went bonkers planting them. This one is a baby and lost its leaves, I think due to seasonal weather changes and leaf rust. New buds are growing back, though, so I'm happy. No fruit as yet, I've only had it for a year, though. It also really ought to be in the ground somewhere, taking root, not in a pot on a patio. Poor figgy...

I don't know where in the PNW you are, but if you have bitterly cold winters, it may not survive. I'd do some research before getting one. Good luck!

@JB - Nice to meet you too! Would love to compare charts sometime. :)

i've known old italian men who grew figs in their backyard in new england..  they need to be bent to the ground and strapped through winter, covered in leaves and then in plastic to insulate them.  in spring they get uncovered and pulled back upright.  fresh figs all summer long...

Good to know, Rant!

Yummy figs...yeah, the panache are gorgeous. They're also called tiger figs. Yellow-green stripes on the outside, raspberry jammy goodness on the inside.

I've got quite a few but nothing very big any more (I had bigger stuff when I lived in London but I don't bother so much now I have a garden). I also have lots of pots of various sizes on my terrace outside the back door, and beside or on my six stone steps leading up to the front door

My favourites currently are the purple tradescantia cuttings I brought back from my friend's garden on the island. I've got a white geranium which is still in flower from last summer! - a salmony pinky azalea also flowering now, and a big lily, just going over, a gift from the owners of the dog. I've also spider plants, which are now about 15th generation, from one a friend gave me way back in the 70s. And one of those tallish plants with a head of wavy spiked dark green leaves edged slightly crimson, whose name escapes me

And there are always pots of herbs on my kitchen windowsill, usually parsley, thyme and basil

About figs - to get a good fruit-bearing tree you need to constrict the root.

You can cut off the tap root and put a big stone slab in the hole when you plant it, or better still plant it in an old tin bucket or can - a bucket is better as it's stronger. If the tree can send down a tap root it will squander its strength, get all leafy and straggly, and never produce much. The best fruiting figs in the Med grow out of eg a tiny hole in a stone wall, or very rocky barren ground!

@Rant... I'm having plant envy!!  I LOVE succulents and have a bunch I've gotten from the local farmer's market.  I have a pair of combat boots on my steps full of them! ;-)  I just got some air type plants from Florida that I'm experimenting with (they even bloom!).  My Grandma and my Mom are huge African Violet fans and I learned from them that Violets like to be cozy with eachother! ;-)

I live in a freak'n treehouse with 3 walls of windows, so I have TONS of house plants!  They love it here and I love them!

My husband inherited a huge plant from his mother and it is over 50 years old.  It's the matriarch of our plant clan!

@ Jennifer and BP on Figs - That is good to know. I'm west of the Cascades and we have a mild winter mostly, but this year has been really dry and warm! Not at all normal. I bet a fig tree would totally dig my one of my porches now, in a pot too!

As far as rescuing plants, it's one of my favorite ways to aquire new plants, by going to the racks of dying, diseased, post-holiday plants off to the side. I like the rescue and saving money too! And nurturing something back to beauty is so healing. If I worked for a greenhouse type place and they wouldn't let me take home throw-aways, I'd be so sad. I'd probably sneak some out in a back pack too!

I have a Gardinia plant. I have had it about 9 years and it hasn't bloomed since I took it home from the greenhouse. I also have 2 coffee bean trees. One is at my shop and was a gift about 11 years ago. The other coffee bean is only about a year old and was a gift from my client.

Wow, quite a few horticulturists (sp?) on this board! I just have a lucky bamboo. It's on my alter with some stones, feathers and other favored posessions.

@miss .. gardenias like a high phosphorous, but low pH soil.  bat guanno works best for this (if you can find it). 

they also need night time temps around 50-55F degrees for blossoms to set, and daytime temps between 65-75F during the day for it to bloom.  \

they do not require full sun, but dappled light is good. 

have you ever gotten blooms/fruit off the coffee plants?

My tree at the shop almost died 3 years ago when I was preggo. Someone overwatered it, grrr.. I did get it to come back to life and cut it back a lot. It has a lot of red coffee beans on it now. I moved it around over the years, but it is back in the spot next to me and my station and growing like a weed. I was told they wouldn't produce beans for until it was 3 years old.

Our house heat is set to about 68-70. I have cut some dead limbs off of the Gardinia and re-pot it. Do you just mix the Guano in with the soil or spread it on top?? I have also tried giving it bloosiming food but no flowers.

guanno from a store should come powdered i believe..  it should be mixed into the soil, or set into holes in the soil that you then fill in, but be very sparing as a little goes a long way. 

i personally have always used fresh guanno harvested from our barn.  if this is available to you, the best way to administer it is to make a slurry..  totally gross, but you basically just mash the shit with water until it's goopy.  then add tiny amounts to holes poked in the soil, then fill them back in. 

never place guanno on the soil surface as it will only reach the top layer of roots, and have a very good possibility of burning your plant. 

blossom booster foods are going to be too acidic for a gardenia in most cases.  look for something like a 15-15-15 or even 7-5-2

@BP - Thank you! I will have to try this and let you know guys know how it goes. :) <3

Yeah.  Probably 50 houseplants.  (blush)  It's a large house.  In the winter when it's cold and dry dry dry the plants help the air in the house smell good and be a bit less dry.  I have one pride and joy houseplant and that is a meyer lemon.  Second year it's fruited and I'm hoping they ripen before the cats remove them as toys again (last year was.. frustrating).  I inherit plants, rarely purchase and then make cuttings and pot out the cuttings or divisions and then constantly have extra to give away. 

Thanks Rant!! I don't think I can get fresh(yuck) guano up here in AK,lol.

I would love to have indoor plants, but every time I get one it dies after a few weeks, so now I don't buy them. I guess I am missing a green thumb.

I've had a Peace Lily for three years. There were others, but the Lily was the only one that survived.

@ Carrie - That sounds wonderful! A treehouse full of houseplants!

Do you have any houseplants? Why did you pick your plant? How long have you had it? Do you do anything special for it? Do you talk to your plants?

I do; currently I only have 3. I had a mould outbreak 3 years ago and got rid of most of them. I have had one spider plant since May 2001 and another similar plant since February 2003. The third plant is from a cutting from the original spider plant; I kept it in a mason jar with water only for 6 months and the leaves grew ginormous--the are very thick and hearty and the stem is over an inch in diametre now.

I got the spider plant because I was moving into my own apartment and owned next to nothing. I do nothing special for them. I don't talk to them so much these days but I fondle them, ruffle up their leaves and stuff.