💡Thought Shares

c/botany-lovers

1

the_alice•23h ago

That one guy at the orchid show who kept sniffing my dendrobium

At the spring expo in Portland, a stranger leaned over my shoulder and inhaled my orchid like it was expensive perfume, then told me it smelled like "grandma's attic but in a good way". Has anyone else had a stranger get weirdly intimate with their plants, or was this guy just a special kind of botanical fan?

18

kelly638•1d ago

My 3 year old monstera finally put out a fenestrated leaf after I moved it 2 feet left

After 3 years of plain solid leaves in my Seattle apartment, I shifted the pot from the east window to 2 feet south last month and today I spotted that first split coming in, has anyone else had a plant suddenly cooperate after a tiny relocation like that?

15

mark_carr7•1d ago

My grandmother's seed packets beat the nursery seedlings this spring

She passed about 4 years ago and I kept a shoebox of her saved seeds without really thinking about it. This March I planted her old zinnia and tomato seeds next to new ones from the garden center. Her stuff came up stronger and the tomatoes taste way better. I think it's because those seeds adapted to this exact soil over decades, while nursery stuff is grown for shipping. Has anyone else had luck with seeds from older generations or am I just getting lucky with the weather?

22

vera_lewis2•4d ago

The community garden plot I gave up on came back on its own

I let my plot at the Fairview community garden go wild for 3 years after my back gave out, just weeds and old stakes. Last week I walked past it and the wildflowers had taken over, coreopsis and black-eyed susans, maybe 80 of them, all self seeded. It looked better than anything I planted on purpose back in 2021 when I paid $45 for starter plants from the nursery. Have any of you ever just let a space sit and watched what nature decided to do with it?

14

marywilson•4d ago

My peace lily finally told me why it hated me for 4 years

I kept wondering why my peace lily drooped every single time I had guests over, like it wanted me to look incompetent. Turns out I was watering it with tap water straight from the sink, and the chlorine and fluoride were slowly killing it. Last Saturday my aunt who grows orchids in her basement in Akron saw my plant and said, 'you know they need filtered water, right?' I laughed and then felt stupid because I had a Brita pitcher sitting two feet away the whole time. I switched to the filtered water and within 3 days the leaves perked up and it actually flowered for the first time since I got it in 2021. All that wasted effort, hundreds of droopy photos, and it was just my hard water all along. Has anyone else had a plant that was silently mad at them for some basic fix you overlooked?

0

avery_flores17•6d ago

PSA: That free plant app lied to me about my fiddle leaf fig

I had a long talk last week with a woman at the local nursery in Austin, and she pointed out that every leaf on my fiddle leaf fig had brown edges from overwatering. The app I used for 8 months kept telling me the soil moisture was fine, but she showed me how to check with a wooden chopstick instead. Turns out the app was reading the top inch while the roots were sitting in wet mud the whole time. She said she sees three or four people a week bringing in plants that got wrecked by those apps. I pulled the plant out of the pot and the bottom third of the roots were mushy and dead. Has anyone else trusted an app over their own hands and paid for it?

21

david_jones38•6d ago

The pH paper test that made me question my whole potting mix routine

I was repotting my ferns last Saturday and grabbed a cheap pH strip kit from the hardware store, just to check the soil I'd been using for two years. Turns out my mix was sitting at 6.8, which is fine for most things, but I assumed it was acidic because the bag said 'for acid-loving plants.' That label meant nothing for my actual tap water, which comes out at 8.2 in my area. After three waterings, the soil had drifted way up. I found this out by accident while testing a random fern that looked pale, and now I'm second-guessing every bagged mix I've ever bought. Has anyone else checked their water's pH effect on potting soil, or am I overthinking this? My ferns are fine, but my blueberries might be telling a different story this fall.

4

vera_robinson36•6d ago

I finally gave up on my $200 soil moisture meter and went back to the finger test

Bought one of those fancy digital meters back in March because I kept killing my ferns with overwatering in my apartment in Portland. It said the soil was dry when it was actually still soaked from the bottom, and I lost three plants before I caught on. Then I checked it against plain old sticking my finger two inches down, and the meter was wrong almost every single time. My neighbor who grows orchids told me she never trusted them either, and now I just feel silly for spending the cash. Anyone else have a gadget that made your plants worse before you ditched it?

15

the_elliot•6d ago

The grow light timer I trusted for 4 years was confusing my seedlings

Ever since I swapped to a cheap smart plug with sunrise simulation in March, my basil and tomatoes in Portland doubled in size, so has anyone else ditched their old mechanical timers after realizing the sudden on/off was stressing the plants?

31

lilya76•9d ago

I finally understood why my grandmother talked to her plants

My grandmother always had this ritual with her old jade plant on the porch in Phoenix. She would sit there every morning before it got hot, just telling it about her day, stuff like the mail being late or the neighbor's dog barking. I used to roll my eyes about it until last spring, when I rescued a dying pothos from a garage sale for $3. I found myself narrating my workouts to it, saying things like "okay, we're doing lunges now" and it actually rooted faster than any cutting I'd ever tried. That little green buddy became my training partner in a weird way, and now I get why she did it. Has anyone else had a plant that just seems to respond when you talk to it?

14

taylorshah•10d ago

Why does nobody talk about root bound rescue timing?

I used to wait until every pot had roots crawling out the drainage holes before repotting, and I lost two really nice ferns in Austin last spring because of it. Now I check every plant every 6 weeks and repot as soon as the soil dries out twice as fast as normal, even if the roots haven't hit the bottom yet. Has anyone else noticed that waiting even a week too long seems to stunt new growth way more than the repotting shock itself?

8

ryan_barnes•11d ago

Met a retired botanist at the arboretum, she scolded me for touching a leaf

Last Saturday at the Denver Botanic Gardens. I was rubbing a big hosta leaf between my fingers. Old woman walks up, taps my wrist. Said the oils on my hands clog the pores, can stunt new growth. I felt like a kid caught stealing. She spent 20 minutes showing me how to properly inspect a plant, just look and use a loupe. Has anyone else had a random stranger correct their plant habits? I still feel bad about that hosta.

5

the_taylor•11d ago

My neighbor's 'overwatering' warning turned out completely backwards

She said my droopy jade plant needed less water, so I cut it back for 2 months and it got worse, until a greenhouse worker in Portland told me the pot had no drainage and actually needed a soak, has anyone else gotten confident advice that set them back?

3

susanb34•12d ago

Appreciation post: the rain barrel at my neighbor's house in Portland changed my whole watering game

Last month I was over at my neighbor's place helping her repot some ferns and she showed me this 55 gallon rain barrel she rigged up under her downspout. She said she hasn't used a hose since April. Honestly, I always thought those barrels got gross or attracted mosquitoes, but hers had a mesh top and a spigot near the bottom. I tried it on my veggies last week and the water is way softer than tap. My tomatoes perked up in like 2 days. Has anyone else switched to rain collection, and do you do anything to keep the algae down?

19

blair_taylor32•14d ago

Found out Venus flytraps only grow wild in one tiny spot in the Carolinas

I was reading a random reddit thread last night and someone dropped the fact that these plants only naturally grow within a 75 mile radius around Wilmington, NC. I always figured they were all over the swampy south, but turns out the rest are cultivated or invasive. Has anyone else been shocked by how specific a plant's native range can be?

20

matthewdixon•15d ago

PSA: The 3-week orchid bloom collapse I keep seeing at garden clubs

Last month I watched five people in our local garden club lose every flower on their phalaenopsis within 48 hours of moving them indoors after summer. The culprit was always the same: they brought the plants inside on a cool night without checking for pests first. I did the same thing in 2021 with a $35 orchid from a nursery in Portland, and scale insects had hitched a ride. That one outbreak spread to my ficus and two other houseplants before I caught it. If you are bringing any potted plant back inside this week, quarantine it in a separate room for at least 10 days. Has anyone else had a pest hitchhiker wipe out a bloom cycle that fast?

17

sage308•17d ago

Picked the cheap grow light over the fancy one, surprised at the outcome

I've been trying to get some herbs going on my kitchen counter in Austin for a while now. After three failed attempts with different seeds, I finally broke down and decided I needed a proper grow light. I was stuck between a $90 full spectrum panel at the local shop and a $25 clip-on LED from the hardware store. Money was tight, so I went with the cheap one figuring I'd upgrade later if it didn't work. It's been about two months now, and my basil and chives are actually doing better than anything I tried before, even with the window light. The cheap light runs warmer and I have to keep it closer to the plants, but that's not a big deal for a tiny setup. Has anyone else gone budget on a grow light and had it work out, or am I just getting lucky with low-demand plants?

1

betty_kelly9•18d ago

The perlite ratio I had all wrong till a greenhouse guy in Portland corrected me

I was mixing like 10% perlite into my soil for 2 years and wondering why my cuttings kept rotting, then this guy at a greenhouse in Portland said you need closer to 30% for drainage. Has anyone else been underdoing their perlite this bad or was it just me?

12

lee847•18d ago

My neighbor's compost advice was backwards, now my roses look rough

My neighbor in Portland told me to add coffee grounds straight to the soil around my roses to boost acidity. I did that for 8 months and they just got worse, leaves curling and all. Turns out fresh grounds can actually block water and mess with the soil structure. I finally asked the guy at the local nursery and he said to compost the grounds first or mix with browns. Has anyone else had their roses go downhill from raw coffee grounds, and what did you switch to?

10

kim.jake•19d ago

Why do people keep pruning hydrangeas in the fall? It kills next year's blooms

I moved into a house with 4 big hydrangeas in March. The previous owner told me she pruned them every fall because they "get too leggy." Sure enough, this summer I got exactly zero flowers. Zero. I looked it up after three tries of watering and feeding, and turns out these specific ones bloom on old wood. She was cutting off all the buds before they had a chance. I get that some hydrangeas like panicle types can handle fall cuts, but people act like all hydrangeas are the same. My neighbor in Tulsa just did the same thing to his mopheads last week and I didn't say anything, now I feel bad. How do you all tell people this without sounding like a know-it-all? Or do you just let them learn the hard way like I did?

0

nancyj11•20d ago

That $90 grow light that turned my seedlings into spaghetti

I swore by the fancy full spectrum panel from the garden center in Raleigh, but after three weeks my basil looked like it was reaching for a window that wasnt there. Swapped it for a cheap fluorescent tube from the hardware store and now everything stays squat and green. Anyone else lose cash on overpriced lights before figuring out simple works better?

24

seth_shah•21d ago

The orchid lady at the farmers market who humbled me in two minutes

I walked away with a $12 bag of proper medium and a bruised ego, but the roots are finally firm after 3 weeks. The weird part is she never once said I was wrong, she just asked better questions and let me dig my own hole. That interaction stuck with me more than any YouTube tutorial because it was so specific to my exact setup. What's the simplest mistake you've seen trip up a fellow plant person?

21

karenh56•21d ago

The houseplant aisle soil mix keeps lying to us

Grabbed a bag of "indoor potting mix" at the big box store out in Tulsa last month. Said it had perlite. Opened it up and it was basically damp sawdust. Repotted three pothos and now they're all sitting in mush two weeks later. The cactus mix is worse, it's just sand with bark chunks. You'd think the people writing those labels actually touched a root before. Anybody else trust the bag less and just mixing their own perlite and peat now?

21

vera_johnson9•21d ago

The native plant section keeps shrinking every year

I went to the garden center in Des Moines last Saturday and noticed the native plant display is down to two small racks. Ten years ago it was a full aisle with prairie dropseed, butterfly weed, and several types of coneflower. Now it is mostly hybrid annuals and that same turf grass everyone plants. I know the demand shifted because I overheard a young couple asking for something that feeds bees, and the clerk pointed them to a non-native salvia instead. It bothers me because natives are what the local insects actually use, and we are losing that connection to our own landscape. I have grown a small patch of milkweed in my backyard for 6 years, and the monarchs still find it every August. Has anyone else noticed their local nurseries dropping native stock, and what do you do about it?

4

jana_jones•25d ago

That garden club lecture on native bees threw me off

The speaker at the Maplewood library said our pollinator gardens are too neat. Said we need bare dirt patches and dead stems. I spent 3 seasons ripping out weeds for looks. Has anyone else changed their yard after a talk like this?