Aftermath

My poor spider plant has been neglected for a while, and left to its own devices for everything but water (I do water it twice weekly). I got a bee in my bonnet and finally gave it a good clean up, including trimming dead leaves and separating out the babies.

Photo description: the aftermath of my spider plant cleaning frenzy, a tangle of leaves and stalks on the floor
Photo description: cleaned up spider plant hanging in the window
Photo description: old canning jar filled with water and spider plant babies

When the spider plant babies root out, I’ll plant them in another hanging pot. I did select the longest leaves from the pile of discards and are letting them dry so I can attempt to make some twine from them eventually.

Cactus terrarium update

Of the original planting of my tea jar terrarium, I had three varieties survive. It was looking rather sparse, so I added succulents from another pot we had hanging in a window.

Photo description: top down photo of my tea jar terrarium with six varieties of succulents and two carved stone figurines

I’ve increased the artificial light from 9 hours to 12 to see if that makes the cactus happier.

I’m looking over…

A five leaf clover. Five leaves. Five.

Photo description: five leaf clover held in my fingers

I was doing my usual scan for four-leaf clover in a clover patch in my front yard, and spotted something new. I thought maybe it was a couple of separate clovers intertwined, but no, the patch produced a five-leaf clover. As this is my first sighting, and the specimen was pristine, I did pick it from the patch and put it in a press for posterity.

Five!

Thank you to all our veterans for your service and sacrifice for our freedom and country. What you did and are doing matters. Thank you.

So much for that

My hypothesis that my Thanksgiving cactus blooms due to drops in window temperature that triggers the leaves touching the window was blown away this month. The cactus has bloomed and we haven’t seen any temperatures below 68. Hm.

Photo description: bright pink Thanksgiving cactus bloom in September

The cactus mysteries continue.

Passion surprise

I was surprised to see a large splash of purple outside, and even more surprised that it was a couple of passion flowers blooming from a vine I thought was dead.

Photo description: purple Passion flowers blooming on a steel fence

While guiding the questing vines in a direction I wanted them to go, I also saw a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar.

Photo description: Gulf Fritillary caterpillar eating a passion vine leaf

Passion vines are host plants for butterflies, and my vines don’t usually grow faster than they are eaten.