Plants!

[nurtsi]

Since we're mostly talking about gardening on these forums, what kind of plants do you folks have in your homes?

I've successfully kept a Golden Pothos (Epipremnum pinnatum) alive for some time now and I'm now considering increasing the amount of green in my pad. I'm mainly after some hard-to-kill, low-maintenance stuff that would look cool. I was thinking about getting a Cheese Plant(?) (Monstera deliciosa) because it's big, has a funky name, and seems easy enough to take care of. Anyone have one of these and how easy it is to keep alive? I'm also thinking about getting a Parlour Palm (Chamaedorea elegans) and a Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata).

My Golden Pothos grows in soil, but I was thinking of using hydroponic growing (the clay gravel thingies + water) with at least one new plant. It should be even less maintenance (no need to change the soil, resistant to mold etc). Anyone have experience with this?

[RhyssaFireheart]

Not sure about other plants, but I have several pothos in the house now.  I call them the "can't kill me" plants.  Seriously, I sometimes think pothos plants and cockroaches are all that's going to be left after the nukes get us all.  I've had one plant that we moved here with over 9 years ago now; still in the same pot even.  I periodically take out the top inch or so of soil and put fresh potting soil in, mixing it up with what is already there. 

I tend to stick to generic houseplant kind of greenery just because it tends to be a bit hardier and can stand when I forget to water for a week or so.  I also have a palm plant of some kind (not sure, it was out of a funeral arrangement) as well as a philodendron (also from a funeral arrangement, oddly enough) that are both doing well.   What else...  Uhh, thinking about it, I have a lot of pothos variety plants in the different rooms of the house.  Mostly because I feel weird cutting off the trailing vine growth and just throwing it away, so I tend to put them in water and repot down the line, which is why I have... about 10 different pots around the house now.

Newest plant that needs to go in soil once spring finally arrives is a clipping from my mom's Christmas cactus.  I used to have a decent sized Christmas cactus (also was from a clipping off my mom's same plant) that I had for years, but I managed to kill it by not giving enough light after we moved to this house.  Now I'm going to try again and see if I can get it to grow and maybe finally bloom for once.  I had the other cactus for years and never got a bloom off it; mom had the same thing.  This winter hers finally burst out into multiple blooms for no apparent reason.

[rattran]

I used to grow bamboo in the house, always a nice bit of greenery and just had to keep the water level up. Then one cat decided bamboo was edible and ate all of them. Leaves, stems, shoots and all.

Any cat-edible plants that grow fast despite neglect would be good though.

[Samwise]

I've got a pretty good collection of carnivorous plants around the house these days.  Like many exotics they're a bit finicky, but once you get them set up right they don't need a lot of work.

Outside I try to garden with natives exclusively, but I haven't done a lot yet since our yards still need some hardscaping before I can do anything serious.  I've got a huckleberry bush out back that'll probably have a nice crop of berries any decade now, though, and I've got some wildflowers (poppies, clarkia, and lupine) growing in front that should start putting on a show soon.

If you want hard-to-kill, Google "noxious weed" and pick one that you think is pretty.  Ivy is a good one.  Or the bastard spawn of Satan if you're trying to get rid of it.

[01101010]

Spider plants. Other stuff, but I have no clue - its all the girlfriend's. She does plant a kick ass garden every year though. Insane tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, etc.

[Mattemeo]

I don't feel I'm at home without a yucca of some description. Over the last decade I've had about 3, the first lasted for many years until it went strange and did some loopy fast growing and could no longer support its own weight, finally succumbing when my dad managed to kill it with over-watering. The second was sadly neglected while I returned to university (it's still in my room in my family home, paper-dry leaves bleached bone white by the sun), and I currently have a very healthy 4'/2.5' twin plant sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom at my appartment.

So long as you don't over-water or generally forget they exist, yuccas are true survivors, especially indoors. They like light, so I keep them on the windowsill at all times. Need watering once, maybe twice a week during summer depending on the heat, and in winter, maybe once every 2-4 weeks and they're happy. I try to clean dust off the leaves with a mister and a soft cloth every few months but otherwise, it's maintenance free. Gorgeous, architectural plants, love them to bits. Hoping my current one lasts long enough to flower some day.

Also a fan of Aloe Veras, again, another plant it's hard to screw up on. Some, if not most, can even survive on air alone for months. So much trapped moisture in them.

[rattran]

I can't seem to get Morning Glories to grow outside, though when I lived ~60 miles east, they grew great. We grow catnip and bull thistles quite successfully, and I was going to plant mulberry bushes until I found out the 30' berry plants along the driveway were mulberries. Which explains why we have semi-arboreal groundhogs.

[Signe]

My sister is the plant/garden person.  She keeps me in extremely potent catnip for the kitties.  They won't even sniff at the store bought stuff anymore.  Anyway, I have no plants.  I have two black thumbs.  I am, however, thinking of trying again.  Incidentally, here's a list I copied for when I make my next attempt (it's long, so spoiler tags to avoid annoying anyone:

[Bunk]

I have three plants right now I recieved from a relative after I moved in to my condo:



The citrusy tree thingy on the left is straightforward enough. The Banana like thing on the right started out sickly with two massive old leaves. I chopped those off, and since it has produced five seperate leaves and seems to gaining strength. Then there is the palmish monstrosity in the middle.

Apparently my aunt wanted it to grow tall and look like a palm tree instead of a bush. So she kept on pruning off all of the lower branches. So now the thing is over six feet tall, has about two dozen seperate branches at the top, and has a "trunk" that is a whopping half of an inch thick at most. It takes two four foot stakes in the pot to hold the damn thing upright - without them it would snap under its own weight. Despite all that though, the thing grows like crazy, healthy as can be.

[CmdrSlack]

I have a jade that was planted from a cutting four years ago when my daughter was born. As long as you don't leave it out in the direct sun of a southern exposure, it does great and requires minimal care. Once we get moved to our new townhouse (and out of this shoebox apartment), I plan to get a lot of plants going. That Pothos looks like something I could easily not kill.

For my outside plants, I tend to use ones that love shade and partial light, then plant them in wooden wine crates, etc. I mostly pick those based on the light requirements on the little sign in the started plants or on the back of the seed packet.

However, for slacker maintenance, nothing beats that jade, IMO.

ETA -- Aloe is pretty forgiving as well.

[Sky]

I've been wanting some greenery around, I should plant some aloe at least. My grandmother was a green thumb and had a jungle in the house and a massive garden (both flower and vegetable).

Only thing I ever learned to grow was weed, and I've forgotten a lot about soil ph and whatnot. Blood meal or something, heh. There's a comedian who pokes fun at people who say they 'experiment' with drugs, like they have on lab coats and clip-boards or something. We actually used to run experiments, take test subject feedback and track genetic lines to narrow down to some really, really potent buds.

Anyway. I'd like to get a few cat-friendly indoor plants. Outdoor is going to be a challenge because I've got a plethora of varmints who love to trod through my yard. If I can get this maple out this spring I'd like to get in a couple apple trees.