c/botany-lovers

Met a woman at a plant swap who taught me how to propagate succulents from just one leaf

Thought my buddy was nuts for growing tomatoes in his basement

My friend Jim set up a whole grow tent with fancy LED lights in his basement last winter, and I kept telling him he was wasting electricity for nothing. Then he brought me a jar of home-canned salsa in March that tasted better than anything I've bought at the store in Denver. Has anyone else tried indoor gardening and actually got good results, or was this just a lucky fluke?

Cuttings in water vs soil for rooting succulents, which side do you fall on?

I tried water rooting my echeveria leaves last month and they rotted, but my neighbor swears by it and has a whole tray of healthy roots, so is it just luck or am I doing something wrong?

My neighbor told me to stop overwatering my ferns but I didn't listen

She said once a week is plenty but I kept doing it every 3 days because the soil looked dry. After two months all three ferns got yellow leaves and root rot. Has anyone else dealt with overwatering stubbornness or did you figure out a better schedule?

Had the worst week for my plants - lost 3 of them in 5 days

I noticed my peace lily looking droopy last Monday so I gave it extra water. Then my pothos started turning yellow on Wednesday and I figured maybe too much sun. By Friday my snake plant had mushy leaves and I finally realized my watering can was leaking way more water than I thought. I measured it and it was putting out like twice what I intended each time. Three plants dead over a simple broken watering can. Has anyone else lost plants to something dumb like a tool malfunction?

I finally got my African violets blooming with coffee grounds

I had these three violets that just wouldn't flower for like a year, even with the right light. I tried a spoonful of used coffee grounds mixed into the top of the soil once a month and got new buds in about 6 weeks. Has anyone else had luck with weird kitchen scraps like this?

Nearly lost my entire orchid collection to spider mites

I was watering my plants in the sunroom last Tuesday and noticed tiny webs on my Cattleya. By the time I grabbed the insecticidal soap, three plants had yellow leaves and one dropped all its buds. Has anyone else dealt with these bugs spreading that fast between pots?

Had a brutal week with my Monstera deliciosa

Three leaves turned yellow overnight. Found out my tap water has too much chlorine. Switched to filtered water and hope it bounces back. Anyone dealt with chlorine damage on big tropicals?

Tried growing orchids in my bathroom for 6 months and got zero blooms

I moved my moth orchid into my bathroom back in March because I read they like humidity. The thing grew like crazy - tons of new leaves and roots, super green. But after half a year of waiting, not a single flower spike showed up. Turns out I was giving it too much nitrogen and not enough temperature drop at night (like 10 degrees cooler). I moved it back to my kitchen window in September and it finally shot up a spike last week. Has anyone else messed up their orchid blooms by coddling them too much?

Overheard two plant nerds arguing about soil pH at the nursery

I was at Armstrong Garden Center in San Diego last Saturday and this couple was going back and forth about whether blueberries need 4.5 or 5.0 pH. They were getting pretty heated over a $12 bag of sulfur. It made me think about how we all get obsessed with tiny details while forgetting to just enjoy the plants, you know? Has anyone else had a weird argument like that in public about something really specific?

Went to the Kansas City botanical garden and finally got why people love succulents

I always thought succulents were boring, just green blobs in tiny pots. But standing in their desert room with 200 different species, the shapes and colors were wild. Anyone else have a random plant that clicked for you at a specific spot?

I think my neighbor killed his lawn with too much nitrogen and it bounced back in 3 months. Want to hear both sides before saying something.

So my neighbor put down that cheap Scott's Turf Builder in April. Then did it again in May. Then again in June. By July his grass was yellow and crunchy. I told him he was burning it. He said the bag says every 6-8 weeks. I said the bag doesn't know your soil. He ignored me. Fast forward to October and his lawn is actually greener than mine now. So either he got lucky or the grass just needed time to recover from his overdoing it. Anyone here ever seen a lawn come back from over-fertilizing that fast or was it something else like the rain we had?

Switched from store-bought soil to mixing my own for my indoor ferns

I used to just grab whatever potting mix was on sale at Home Depot, but after my maidenhair fern turned yellow for the third time, I finally tried blending my own with perlite and orchid bark at a 2:1:1 ratio. Now that fern is putting out new fronds every week instead of dying. Has anyone else experimented with custom soil mixes for fussy plants?

My neighbor told me to stop babying my bonsai and I thought he was nuts

So this old guy down the street, Mr. Cho, has been growing bonsai for like 40 years. I was out trimming my little juniper last spring and he walks over and says I'm overwatering and pruning too often. He said just let it sit in the sun and ignore it for 2 weeks. I wanted to argue but he pointed at my tree's yellowing leaves and just laughed. After 3 weeks of his method, the leaves turned dark green and it started pushing new growth like crazy. Turns out all that fussing I was doing was stressing the roots out. Has anyone else had a "hands off" tip from an old timer that actually worked better than the book way?

TIL my snake plant has been plotting against me for 3 years

Last month I moved my potted snake plant to a new spot in my kitchen, and it turns out it had grown a massive root through a crack in the bottom of the pot into my floorboards. Took me an hour with a hammer and chisel to free it. Has anyone else had a houseplant get that attached to your home?

Just stopped babying my orchids and they actually started blooming again

For years I was that person who watered my orchids on a strict schedule every 7 days exactly. I had a whole system with ice cubes and measured amounts. Last spring I got busy with work and forgot about them for almost 3 weeks. When I finally checked, the leaves were wrinkly but two of them had new flower spikes shooting out. Now I just water when the roots look silvery and the pots feel light. Has anyone else had better luck after backing off the constant care routine?

Had to choose between native wildflowers and a manicured lawn for my front yard

Last spring I got this wild idea to rip out my whole front lawn and plant a native wildflower meadow. My HOA sent me a warning letter about the "weeds" after 3 weeks of growth. I had to decide between fighting them with a formal garden plan or just going back to boring grass. I picked the wildflowers and spent way too long arguing with the board president on speakerphone. Has anyone else dealt with an HOA over native plants and won?

Old guy at the nursery told me to stop babying my tomatoes

He said 'quit watering every day, let them get thirsty.' I thought he was crazy. First year my plants got all leggy and weak. Second year I tried his way. Watered deep but only twice a week. Roots went way down. Had the best harvest I ever got. Anyone else get advice that went against everything you thought you knew?

Tried to prop a calathea from a leaf cutting - three months of wasted effort

I don't know what I was thinking honestly. I saw all those YouTube videos where people just stick a leaf in water and boom new plant. So I took a nice big leaf off my rattlesnake calathea back in July, put it in a jar on my kitchen windowsill, changed the water every week like a good plant parent. Three months later (three months!) the leaf was still perfectly green but zero roots. Zero. I finally googled it properly and found out calatheas can't even be propagated from leaf cuttings. You need to divide the rhizome. I could have just divided it and had two plants in like 20 minutes. Has anyone else wasted months on a propagation method that literally cannot work?

Hit 500 rare orchid seedlings this morning and it freaked me out a bit

I've been growing orchids from seed in my basement setup for about 3 years now, nothing fancy just a couple shelves with lights and a humidity tent. This morning I did my weekly count and I hit exactly 500 seedlings that are past the flask stage. That number really threw me because I started with maybe 40 seeds from a single hybrid pod I got at a local club meeting in Columbus. They're mostly crosses of cattleya and laelia, nothing super rare but still. I guess what worries me is that I don't have space for 500 adult plants and I'm already running out of room on my second shelf. Has anyone else accidentally grown way more specimens than they planned and had to figure out what to do with them all?

The fact that poison ivy can grow as a vine up trees surprised me last week

I was clearing brush behind the hardware store and found a hairy looking vine climbing a maple. Looked it up online and learned poison ivy vines can get two inches thick and live for decades. Has anyone else been caught off guard by how this plant hides in plain sight?

Used to just water my pothos when I remembered... now I actually check the soil moisture first

For like 2 years I was just dumping water in whenever the leaves looked droopy. Turns out I was basically drowning it half the time and starving it the other half. Learned that trick from a lady at a plant swap in Austin last spring. She said stick your finger in two inches and if it's dry then water. My pothos has like 4 new vines since then. Anybody else have a basic plant care skill they wish they learned way sooner?

Killed my fern by accident in a weird way last month

I was in Denver at my cousin's place and tried to save their dying Boston fern by moving it closer to the window. Turns out that window gets direct afternoon sun and the leaves got scorched in like 2 days. I felt so bad I went out and bought them a new one from a nursery on Colfax. Has anyone else tried to help someone's plant and just made things worse?

Saw the strangest plant setup at a garden in Portland last weekend

I was walking through the Hoyt Arboretum last Saturday and one of the volunteer guides showed me this little greenhouse they built just for ferns. Honestly, it was tiny, like maybe 10 feet by 10 feet, but they had misters going every 30 minutes and the humidity felt like a cloud. The cool part was they used recycled plastic bottles as mini cloches for the baby ferns. Has anyone else seen something like that at a public garden?

My neighbor was wrong about moving peonies

Old man across the street kept telling me I had to move my peonies every 5 years or they stop blooming. I believed him for 3 years. Finally asked the master gardener at the county extension office in Grand Rapids. She laughed and said peonies can go 50 years in one spot if they're happy. Mine were just buried too deep. Dug them up, reset the crowns an inch below soil, and they exploded this spring. Has anyone else gotten bad gardening advice from a well-meaning neighbor?