Plant Diaries #1 – Starter house plants

So as is typical of any 30+ adult doing adult things, I have decided to try my hands at making my home a bit more home-y by adding more house plants. If you’ve noticed my other photos, the only plant I have successfully (sort of) kept alive is the pothos or more locally called the money plant. Even then, I’ve successfully killed the supposedly unkillable pothos. The only ones that survive for me are the ones I keep permanently in water not soil.

So I asked my mom to help propagate some of her plants to me. Told her I want the easy to care for types that won’t die easily. She recommended 2 to me: Snake plant & Spider plant. So I’m starting a silly diary to see how well I can keep them alive or how soon I kill them off.

I’ve also been reading online about taking care of these plants, and was pretty glad to see that the 3 plants I have at home are considered great starter house plants (kinda like the starter Pokémon of the house plant world). However, most of the plant care advice are for those in countries with 4 seasons and I live in a tropical climate. Also, I’m starting to be very skeptical of “unkillable plant” claims.

Pothos / Money Plant (in water)

So as mentioned before, prior to this diary I’ve killed 2 pots of pothos planted in soil, moved the rest to water and so far have managed to keep 2 kinda thriving and 1 err.. not growing as well as I hoped.

Snake Plant / Mother-in-law’s Tongue ( Sansevieria trifasciata)

Again, supposedly one of those unkillable plants. Heck, some YouTuber said you have to try very hard to kill them. B*itch please, hold my beer. I’ve killed 2 pots of snake plants. One from over-watering, one from under-watering. So now these guys are on a once-a-week, one small Harry Potter butterbeer cup of water schedule. So far…so good. *touch wood* I’ve only had 1 or 2 leaves die so I consider this a great success.

Spider Plant

Seemed easy enough, first week after getting the babies from my mom they grew quickly so I thought all was well. And then disaster struck, the leaves started turning yellow and browning. Still trying to figure out if it’s due to over-watering or under-watering. Discarded 1 dead spiderling and added 2 more babies. Wish me luck. Again, everyone says these are super hardy plants but I can’t seem to keep mine alive. fml.

Ajuga Mona Lavender ( Plectranthus )

So since I already had the 3 starter Pokémon house plants, I decided I wanted a “Pikachu” and got a flowering plant. It has pretty leaves with dark purple undersides and a fuzzy top. The flowers are cute small lavender flowers which I hope will come out soon as I bought the plant right after it finished blooming. The guy at the plant nursery just told me to water every day and to add fertilizer once every 2 weeks. We shall see how it goes. Send thoughts and prayers please.

So that’s my collection of house plants for now. I will update every few months and see how it progresses. Perhaps I should start a kill count also. heh.