House Plants

clivia ? What is that, sounds a bit rude!

Friends gave me a clivia that they had raised themselves. I waited and waited and....it never looked like flowering. I tried neglecting it; I tried treating it kindly. I gave it a good talking-to which usually works well with shrubs in the garden. But after about 8 years, I simply gave up and donated it to the compost heap. So

My mum had a clivia plant for about 30 years. One year when I got to their house (abroad) I asked where it was. She was quite old and frail by then and said 'I was fed up with it and threw it on the compost'.

I would have loved to adopt it- but it was too late. It flowered every year, no idea what she did with it.

House plants for me at this time of year are the bowls containing various bulbs which are all coming up nicely now.

I'm pretty good at garden plants but house plants see me coming! Am nervously caring for a cactus for my mum. We brought it back as a tiny one from Lanzarote, but it's now 12" high and viciously barbed so was given back to me to 'care for' to stop mum getting injured. They enquire after it every week.........!
Orchids I'm fairly successful with but have managed to kill so-called foolproof plants, including a 50 year old Aspidistra and a huge Mother-in-Law's Tongue ........suspect overwatering saw them off.....

The eggshells can be added to either method over time whenever you have an egg.

Not talking about a week's worth of shells

Often house plants are treated as disposable. After all, a colourful potted chrysanthemum or azalea will cost less and last much longer than a bouquet of flowers. My mum had a white cyclamen which she kept going for years by putting it out in the summer to rest. She had green fingers with African violets too which she germinated from leaf cuttings. I am just too impatient.

When I had an indoor cyclamen, I would plant it outside in the garden, in its pot, after its flowering season was over, then bring it in again for the colder months. One year I forgot and it flowered outside. Then I 'helped' it spread its seed pods and the outdoor patch of cyclamen grew in size over several years. I think it had reverted to its unforced state.

That was in Oxfordshire. I suspect the climate in Argyll is too wet and the soil in my garden too acid, but I might have another go. Thanks for reminding me

I bought a Christmas cactus from Aldi at the end of November and it has lots of flower buds, several of which have opened to give a spectacular display. I am watering it very,very sparingly with tap water, on the premise that cacti don't need much water. Gave up on poinsettias years ago as I could never keep them going.

Nice thread. Are house plants still as popular as they once were. It may be my imagination, but not many younger people seem to have them? ( maybe I do not know enough younger people!!)

At long last I have got my hands on a Clivia plant. I hope it flowers, eventually. I seem to have success with Hoyas and Christmas cactus. Both of which do well by being ignored!

X

I don't think I eat enough eggs to use your methods, Agus! Rosequartz, poinsettias, being natives of Mexico, won't produce red bracts unless they are given equal hours of dark and light. They will still grow, but only boring green leaves. I had a beautiful poinsettia tree in my garden in Kenya where the conditions were exactly right.

Should be, with warm water.

Two fertilising methods I use for plants is broken eggshells in a large jar of water with a tight lid. But beware, it really stinks.

Another method is clean off broken shells with warm after to remove protein, ground down the shells to,powder form, sprinkle on the soil and water in.

Both methods are a good supply of calcium

I would have thought that boiled egg water would be hard, with added calcium etc.

My outdoor cyclamen seem to survive excess water, frost, snow, ice, heat - anything they weather throws at them.

My indoor cyclamen keel over after they have been subjected to my tlc.
I can't keep poinsettias either, and haven't bought any yet this year in case they didn't survive until Christmas.

Perhaps I will try the egg water.

You are lucky! Perhaps I need to start eating boiled eggs if I get given one! Wonder if it's the hard water v soft water thing? We have hard water here, and would boiled egg water be soft?

The cyclamen in my friend's house is an indoor one; mine are also house plants. They are clearly forced but I am trying to bring the earlier one back into flower and I think there is a chance of success. I usually water them from below.

I wonder which type of cyclamen it is? Apparently you're supposed to water the indoor ones from the bottom (I can't keep them either) but an usually outdoor cyclamen coum or hederifolium that my daughter grows indoors seems to thrive on total neglect and rarely stops flowering. Even when it is dried out it springs back to life. The bigger ones bought this time of year are forced and I'd love to be able to keep one for more than a few weeks!
African Violets are another plant that fails to survive in my hands yet I can grow orchids for years