You Grow Girl™

The other night we rented "Minority Report". I'm an avid Phillip K. Dick fan so I figured the filmn wouldn't be too bad despite my distaste for Tom Cruise. The reason why I'm bringing it up here is that there is a scene in the film that involves a visit to the most amazing greenhouse! My mouth was hanging open through the entire scene. The 'plant lady' had amazing futuristic carnivourous plants mixed in with PLENTY of very real, very awesome plants. My dream home! How much money do I need to acquire something like that I wonder?

Well I finally did the deed and dug up my cardamon plant to take a look at the roots. Alot of them looked dead but I did a thorough inspection with a loupe and didn't find any bugs... I suppose that's a good thing. I cut back all the leaves, cut back the dead roots, put it in soil and called it a day. We'll see what happens but I'm not holding my breath.

Yesterday I bought a friend of mine the most stunning cactus as an Xmas gift. I hope she doesn't read this before I give it to her. Yesterday I popped into a local florist that sells some unusual plants hoping to find something small to accompany her other gifts. She just moved into an apartment with big south-facing windows and has lots of light. She has stated that she'd like to procure some new plants -- and I'm happy to oblige. Most of my friends don't care much for plants or are a little afraid of receiving them from me as they seem to think I'm going to judge them harshly if they don't keep the plant alive (not true). So when someone mentions in passing that they want a plant, it's an opening for me to plant shop. So anyways, I walked around the store and started to freak because all they had were some REALLY expensive orchids and some kind of expensive and rather tiny bromeliads. It's a florist so they pot them up in really nice pots, but that raises the price. I don't care about fancy pots as I can do that myself. I had already given her an urn plant (one of my offsets) so I didn't want to give her another bromeliad -- especially not a tiny one. I wanted to give something stunning and unusual. So by chance I asked the woman working there if she had any succulents or cactus since she had a nice assortment a few weeks prior. She pulled out a tray of crassula that didn't thrill me. I mentioned that she had some cactus a few weeks ago and that was what I had been leaning towards. Well she then pulled out from behind the counter two HUGE plants -- both in hanging baskets. Apparently she just hadn't gotten around to putting them out. I asked how much and of course while she dug out the price list I became attached to the plants. When she said 20 bucks I couldn't believe it. That's pretty good considering how large they were. So of course I bought one.

I'm still not sure exactly what it is [photo above]. It is either a type of Rhipsalis or a Hatoria salicorniodes. If you have ab idea please comment below. I've poured through books and websites of photos but I'm still not sure. Either way it doesn't really matter because both are epiphytic cacti and have roughly the same care. Of course when I initially asked at the store they were just calling it "Pencil Cactus" and said that for care I could just leave it and water it now and then. When I said "Are you sure this isn't a jungle-type cactus", the reply was "What's that?". So much for getting help from the salesperson. Watering it "now and then" isn't the proper care for this type of cactus unfortunately. It prefers moist soil with reduced watering in the winter.

Today I took a few cuttings from the plant for myself. That's the upside to giving plants as gifts. You can either give cuttings from your own plants, or take cuttings from the store-bought plants for yourself. It's a win-win situation all around.

This afternoon when I was supposed to be finishing up some gifts, I gave some of my plants a shower. I'm STILL fighting the scale insect on my staghorn fern and felt it was time for another shower. Of course I decide to water one and the next thing I know all the epiphytic plants are being thrown into the shower for a cleanup and hose-down. What starts out as a small thing, turns into a big production that results in me, the bathroom floor and everything in close proximity getting soaked. I think the largest Urn plant is finally starting to die back. They follow a life cycle that involves flowering, flowers dying, offsets coming up and mother plant dying. My plant started producing offsets well over a year ago and it is still alive and kicking. I'm not complaining. However, I do need to cut the remaining offsets off and repot them but I decided not to do that today. It's Xmas Eve. I'm supposed to be finishing gifts and doing stuff. We're so relaxed here though. The schedule is: sometime today or tonight my brother is coming over (and possibly another friend) and we're eating some food (no big special meal. We just go to the store and buy lots of stuff and then figure it out later. Any free meal is a special one for my brother regardless.), followed by gift opening, followed by being lazy for the next two days.