Petite Pilea

I found some mugs in a box with some friends recently. Cute little ceramic things with stripes, one was black and white, the other two blue and white.  Soon after I was going through planting supplies and found a perfectly sized inner pot for the mug, seriously, like they were made for each other.  It was a sign, must plant!

Enter the Pilea!

The cutest little plant for the cutest little mug.  Pilea seems like such a happy little plant, I was happy to give this to a friend hosting people for pie and fireworks-viewing on the 4th of July.

Happy freestyling and plant sharing!

A happy square

Walking home from a friend's house I passed through a residential neighborhood full of cute houses and a long established practice of leaving free things on the sidewalk.  Could a post-brunch winter walk have any more potential? 

In front of one house I came across this square ceramic cachepot with the words HAPPY BIRTHDAY on one side.  I suspect at one point it contained an arrangement built on florist's foam or perhaps something edible. Either way, I washed it well and it's mine now.

It was the perfect size for a Christmas cactus that had been living in a transparent glass planter surrounded by shells (looked fine, but made it difficult to lift the plant out to check for excess water).
Luckily the wording is only on one side of the planter.

Now this lovely little square pot lives on the shelf near the window next to the hippo planter (with the Haworthia) and near the pothos cuttings that I hope will survive their transplant from water to dirt.

Don't trash it, let someone else treasure it!
Happy freestyling.

A basket for texture

Many design blogs talk about 'layering' the elements of your room, and the importance of bringing in different textures to create this more visually interesting layered look.  Message received!  So when I found a small basket I knew just what it could be, an outer container for some sort of plant. Texture on texture for the win.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice that the interior pot is much smaller than the basket diameter. I didn't have a perfect plastic liner for this basket, but these 'Himalayan Mix' plants from the scandi-superstore seemed voluminous enough to balance the size of the basket although they were a bit short.  The solution is that the interior plastic plant pot is sitting on top of a ceramic pot to make the whole arrangement tall enough to stand above the edge of the basket.  It also helps add a little weight and stability.  So there it is, a little corner of my universe, filled with plants. And texture.

Happy frestyle gardening.

A fern reminder

Sometime in the middle of winter I found a lovely blue plant pot down by the dumpster.  Thank goodness for small favors that it wasn't IN the dumpster but rather NEXT TO it, which made it much easier to find.  Thank you mystery person for realizing that someone else would like your plant pot, that person is me....with my fern.

























Here is the Boston fern in its new home.  I would point out for all you hesitant growers that this plant has been split at least 3 times but just keeps growing back like a champ.



























Now the Boston fern has a small bromeliad neighbor in the white ceramic pot (also free). The bromeliad is a cutting that came off a plant I took care of over the winter holidays, and that plant had been an offshoot of one I originally bought. So I suppose this little guy is the grand-plant of my original. 

Full circle, yada yada yada.

Happy freestyle gardening and paying it forward with vegetation.

Everything about this plant was free

Full confession, I collect planters and planting supplies even if I don't have a specific need.
Yes.
I am a plant hoarder who likes to be prepared.

For example, I found some black plastic plant pots while biking home one night, and even though they were a bit awkward to balance on the handlebars they made it home. So far I've used two of the six.   More recently I found a pair of adobe-colored plastic planters with separate trays, score!  I've also found the occasion bag of potting soil, not glamorous but something that I can *always* use.

This preparation meant that when a large aloe cutting showed up on my desk one day I was ready to plant it.  I trimmed the black plastic inner pot so it wouldn't stick out over the top of the adobe-colored outer pot.

I could have planted the entire aloe directly in the adobe-color plastic pot, but the drainage holes are rather small, and I wanted to keep the pot small while the cutting is developing roots. This way there is a large gap below the bottom of the black pot for drainage.

I used some shells on top of the dirt to help hold things in place, and even the shells are free courtesy of my parents and their trip to the beach.

Happy freestyling and plant swapping.

My kind of bro-mance

More plants, more plants, more plants, and more posts about plants.  This one is about a bro-mance, but in this case the 'bro' stands for 'bromeliad', because its about plants. Duh.
I found a green ceramic piece that once contained a fruit bouquet (judging from the sticker on the bottom), but that happened to be the perfect size for a 4-inch plastic planter.  Now, I didn't necessarily have a plant to put in it when I found it, but the hoarder motto is 'take it now, use it later', although I'm sure there are other hoarder mottos, perhaps so many that they hide under couches and spill out of closets.....

Anyway, enough random words, here is the green ceramic cachepot...




















Here is the bromeliad, looking lovely in its greenery.

Happy freestyling!

Ferns and friends

The Boston fern is a houseplant that keeps on giving.  For a few dollars this grocery store purchase has grown and been split multiple times, with clones now living among multiple friends. 
At one point during a plant thinning phase I gave this fern cutting away to friends.

They liked it, and so did their cat (Boston ferns are listed as non-toxic and cat safe by the ASPCA website) who regularly chomped on the fronds.  In order for the fern to survive my friends moved it outside to the patio.
The owner writes "fern is doing much better after the cat stopped mowing it."

Happy freestyling and gardening!

New Home for a Dracena marginata

The Dracena genus of plants includes a variety of beautiful and hardy specimens, very popular for indoor houseplants.  Buy one, help clean your air!  My Dracena is an $8 grocery store purchase that has survived for 3 years on a south-facing windowsill and looks just fine, it might be Dracena marginata since the leaves have red edging.  The plant had been in the same pot for over 2 years, and it had grown steadily during that time, so I unpotted it and found that there was almost no soil left around the roots.  Time to repot!  Unfortunately the hardware store near me does not sell low-cost large flexible plastic plant pots.  But they do sell large expensive-y ceramic pots....no thanks.  Good thing I had a freestyle find to help get the job done.

The plastic on these green plant pots is oddly brittle and the top had split in a few places (maybe why someone discarded them during the summer).  I reinforced the top with a loop of duct tape all around the outside so that any handling wouldn't cause the whole thing to break apart.  Functional, but not very pretty.

 

  On the top of the pot in places where it was split I added tape over the top like in the photo below.

As you can see in the photo above and below I added a layer of rocks over the soil, hopefully this will help prevent fungus gnats from taking up residence in the dirt.  I paid for the decorative rocks. It was a $7 moment of weakness.

To make the whole package a little prettier I put the planter into a cachepot - a fancy term for a ceramic planter without holes in the bottom.  This helps to obscure the duct-tape repairs since the planter sits a few inches below the edge of the cachepot.  This cachepot was one I had on hand, originally purchased at Ikea for $20.

The final repotted Dracena looks lovely in its new home.  I'm glad I found a way to repair and reuse the brittle green plastic planters.

Happy gardening and freestyling!