Green Thumbs Run In The Family!

After talking to my Grandma (maternal) I found out her mom had a green thumb too. She said she had a lot of house plants and could make anything grow, even a stick ha ha.  I have that same ability, stuff that others would count as beyond hope or dead I try to save. Most of the time I do.    My dad was also good with plants.  I am not really sure about my mom since she died when I was young, I know we always had a jungle but who took care of it isn't in my memories.  I can't ask my Dad since he has passed. Either way I got it from both sides.  I am hoping my son will enjoy plants the way I do, he seems to now. He always wants to move them around, play in the dirt and stroke the leaves.   He is also my watering helper.   We just need to master getting the water in the plants and not on the floor, ha ha. 

   I am going to see if my Grandma has any pictures of great-Grandma's plants. 

Starting Vase

Everyone with plants should have a vase (with water) to put cuttings in, this will start new plants. I have one that I put all kinds of cutting into.  Some types of plants do not do well sitting in water but you don't know until you try.  I have noticed that the ones with a thick heart are the worst.  The heart is the soft white center of the plant, this is how they get water up to the top.  These types of plants just get mushy instead of growing roots.

The vase should be dark in color, mine is dark green. Clear ones let in to much light which can hurt new roots.  A little is ok but straight sun is not.  If you only have a clear vase you can wrap the bottom half with pretty paper or foil.

                      

I would like to get a few more vases in different colors to see if one color is better then the rest.

You will also want to put some rocks in it to give the roots something to grab, I like the bigger glass stones. You can get them in fish dept. of a pet store or online.

I do not count the cuttings in this vase as plants in my collection, not until they are in pots and look like they will make it.

Moving With Plants

I have got some plants from people that were moving, side note: I would never give away my plants because I was moving.  But this brings up how hard it is to take your plants with you. I have never moved "out of town" so my "not giving them away" may change if I had to move further then the other side of town.   It took many trips in the car to get all my plants from the old house to the new house. This was because I have big, medium and small plants so they all couldn't be crammed into the car at one time, at least not without breaking them.

During my move I lost 2 of my plants, I think the first is called a "Hen & Chick", it just up and died within a week of moving.  It could of been from being left in the hot/warm room for a day or from the shock of moving. I had also transplanted it to a new and different kind of pot about a month before moving.  I don't think it really liked the new pot I put it in. I was planning on putting it back in a pot like it was before I transplanted it but it died before that happened. 

I had a Hen & Chick plant a while ago and killed it too, so it could just be that this type of plants doesn't like me. That can happen.

The next one I lost was my Gold Fish Plant, I am pretty sure that is the name of it. It is called that because the flowers look like Gold Fish. with this one I don't think I can really blame the move on its demise. It was not looking to good before we thought about moving.