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propagating –

I used to be so nervous about removing the pups from my pilea. As you can see, no issues here now! I LOVE (carefully) ripping it apart and making new plants. From my mother plant I was able to get three brand new pots full of pilea babes. Two of which I gave away for Mother’s Day. (It feels REALLY nice to give away plants you’ve propagated!)

Stolen from my husband’s humble little plant collection in his office! I trimmed some pieces of donkey tail and popped them in a takeout container with a lid for a couple of weeks to sprout some roots before moving them to this planter. I’m generally not a huge fan of this plant because it’s so dang fragile and always losing pieces if you even look at it wrong but it is so cute.

Also from Jeff’s collection, I stole some cuttings of a terribly leggy cactus he had. Same thing as above, I popped it in a takeout container for a bit to root before moving it to this tooth planter. So far so good!

good news –

My Peperomia San Marino will not stop flowering. It’s been about two months now and it just keeps pushing them out. It’s quite apparent she likes where she lives (in my bathroom!) This is probably one of the most low maintenance plants I own.

the not so great news –

Sooo, in my last update I mentioned how I separated a pup from my Madagascar Palm and it almost immediately dropped all of its leaves. I was still hopeful that it’d recover. I hoped it was just shocked.

Alas, death came knocking. At the beginning of April it was just… 100% limp and soggy. Clearly over watered. Whoops. I did a little squeeze on the mother plant and felt that even though she hadn’t fallen over yet, she was still squishy as all heck.

Wanna see something gross? Here’s what the inside looked like. Jeff joked I should make banana bread out of it. I wanna wash my hands just looking at that.

then & now –

My dollar plants that I rescued from Lowe’s! I almost feel like the photos below don’t properly show how much growth each one has put out. New leaves for everyone! I’m super impressed with the rebound each has made.

Buying plants that are already big and healthy is fun but there is something super satisfying about knowing you took a plant from nothing to something. I have a feeling that in a few more months these babies will be some of my favorites.

Above in March, below in May.

The wandering jew (the smallest of the three plants) was the one I was most concerned wouldn’t make it. It just didn’t feel healthy to the touch. It doesn’t look like it’s grown a ton but the photos above and below really show how much color it’s gained! It’s finally developing the purple tones the plant is known for. I’m very excited to watch it continue to grow and hopefully just continue to get more vibrant.

Is it even a plant update post if I don’t ramble on about this special plant? My syngonium! Get the full backstory here. I currently have four plants of my own grown from that handful of original leaves. PLUS, most excitingly, I gifted another to my sister-in-law for Mother’s Day. Felt like a nice way to acknowledge how special she is to me. Also, I know it’s a super common thing to do but my mom ALWAYS gifted plants for mother’s day so it kinda feels like carrying on that tradition except in an ever more meaningful way. Okay, gotta stop. Gonna cry.

I’m just so pleased with how easy these plants are to care for. I cannot get over the fact that in less than a year I’ve made five full and healthy plants from just a few leaves.

new arrivals –

Having not left the house other than for walks in nearly two months should mean no new plants…right? That’s what I thought but a local plant shop, Urban Planting Cleveland, is doing deliveries so obviously I had to support small business.

I’ve gotten a handful of new plants from them. I never had the chance to visit their actual store before the virus but they’ve quickly become one of my favorite local businesses.

My two favorites from them so far have been my monstera deliciosa (below) and the rhaphidophora tetrasperma – which I recently made a timelapse of!

More new plants! Alligator plant aka mother of millions! I’ve been wanting one of these for a while but was having trouble finding them in person and online they seemed to be kind of expensive? Randomly ebay put one in my recommendations and for under $10 I couldn’t resist.

Linked above is the seller I bought from. I highly recommend them! They shipped quickly and the plants look great.

The big reason I wanted one of these is because like the name suggests, they produce lots of babies. I love propagating things. It doesn’t matter what, I just like knowing that I helped a plant multiply. The MOM plant basically doesn’t even need my help.

I had placed the pups that fell off the main plant during shipping in my little takeout container / propagation box when I first got them. It’s been less than a week and they already have roots!? WHAT! I am very excited to turn this one purchase of six small plants (all grouped together in the planter below) into many many plants that I can give away to anyone and everyone I know.

Lifesaver plant. I specifically bought this little dude because of the flowers it produces. Seriously, go look at the listing I linked! I never really go into indoor plants that flower. My experience with flowering things is basically just annuals that I had when I had outdoor growing space. Now more than ever, I’ve taken an interest in unique indoor plants that flower. I think this is the start of an obsession… I am probably going to freak when this baby blooms.

I also bought about a million other things too but it’d take forever to list all of them. I’ve definitely taken photos so I can track their growth though. This quarantine has done a number on my plant collection. When this all started, I didn’t have room for any more plants BUT in true collection’s fashion, I managed to find room. There’s ALWAYS room. At this moment, I’m actually waiting on even more plants from Urban Planting Cleveland to be delivered. Just feels good to have something to take care of and look forward to, ya know? I suppose there are worse things to be obsessed with.

Check out my instagram hashtag for more photos of my plant collection – #kaylahheartsplants.