Houseplant Obsession

by Alan Cole · Published Monday, July 10th, 2023 · Updated Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

Long-time readers of this blog will know I get into projects for a while and go all out on them! I usually keep them going in the background afterwards but don’t necessarily blog about them or invest quite so much energy into them after a while. My latest obsession is houseplants! Don’t worry, I won’t be blogging non-stop about every single plant but I thought it would be nice to mention them.

I’m not sure why, but since living in this house we haven’t really had any houseplants. I used to have some huge ones many years again in our previous house. But when we moved here we were living in a caravan on a building plot while we built the house so the houseplants were given away to new homes. For one reason or another, I never got around to replacing them – until now.

To be honest, we have had one or two plants in the house for a while. A few much neglected Aloe Vera’s in the conservatory. Thankfully they thrive on neglect! A couple of orchids on the kitchen window sill that flower nicely each year but never seem to do that well. And, from time to time various cuttings, seedlings, and small pepper or chilli plants in the conservatory too.

Room for Plants

I guess I had plenty to do with keeping the plants in the garden alive. That, and the fact that the house isn’t huge so I didn’t think there was much room for plants. Silly, really, because now that I’ve started my houseplant obsession “there’s ALWAYS room for another plant1”

However, after a recent trip to family in Bristol we returned with a huge Dracaena, a formative Sansevieria, a Tradescantia cutting and a whole load of baby spider plants. The newly refurbished conservatory was the perfect place to set up a ‘propagation station’ for the tradescantia and spider plants. After buying some suitable cover pots, the Dracaena had pride of place in the living room and the Sansevieria is now in the newly reconfigured dining room. Yes, part of the motivation for moving things around in these rooms may have been my new houseplant obsession!

New Plants

I then decided that I needed more and just so happened to come across a couple of Calathea’s in M&S. These are notoriously difficult to keep but they seem to be doing well in the living room so far.

I also ordered a few plants online. These came really well packaged and looked fairly healthy too. These included a peace lily for the bedroom, and a Pothos that will hopefully trail from the top of the bookshelves in the dining room. A Boston fern for the bathroom and a ZZ plant that is currently in the conservatory but may end up somewhere else.

Pots

Some of the above I ordered with pots as we want them to look nice. We needed a few others as well and they had to be the correct size. Whilst looking we came across a nice little Peperomia in M&S that was already in a nice looking pot. I bought it more for the pot than the plant but the Peperomia has remained in the pot for now and it’s on the windowsill in the office.

That obviously didn’t help with pots for the others but it’s a nice little plant and we have some more pots arriving soon.

Surprise Presents

Anna’s Mum must have got wind of my new obsession too as the other day a parcel arrived for me with a present of a Streptocarpus. Thanks Pat! 🙂 That one looks really healthy and is growing fast already. It has nice flowers and I’ll soon take some leaf cutting to propagate it and make more. I can see the kitchen windowsill being full of them soon!

Propagation

Talking of propagation, the conservatory is perfect for such things at the moment. The Tradescantia cutting that I had has taken really well and I’ve already taken more cutting from it so that I can put lots of them into a single pot and then have them hanging from the conservatory ceiling. That’s a work in progress. The spider plants are of course doing well. I already have more than I know what to do with.

The huge dracaena in the living room was slightly damaged during its traumatic journey squished into the back of the car. A small bit snapped off the top that I found a few days later. I’m trying to grow a new plant from this section but so far it doesn’t seem to be doing much. I’ve also taken a cutting of the new ZZ plant. It’s always good to have a backup!

Next on the list of propagation plans will be the Streptocarpus leaf cuttings, maybe some Sansevieria leaf cuttings and while I’m at it I’ll take some from the Peperomia as well. The Pothos will probably be propagated at some point, but not until it’s a little larger and has started trailing for me.

Swap Shop Finds

Finally, last night whilst flicking through Facebook I came across someone in Borth with a few Clivia plants for £3 each. I wasn’t doing anything else so thought I’d give them a go. They are huge already! They do have some sunburn damage on their leaves but they had just been divided and placed into new pots with fresh compost so will hopefully soon start growing new leaves at which point I’ll be able to tidy them up.