c/botany-lovers

11

spencer_moore39•1d ago

That one rainy week last spring where everything just grew like crazy

Had a stretch of 5 days straight of drizzle in my backyard in Nashville back in March and suddenly my hostas doubled in size and the ferns just exploded. Has anyone else had a specific weather window that made their garden look completely different than the rest of the season?

3

ericfox•1d ago

Three months to figure out my propagation station was too close to the window

I kept losing cuttings to rot and couldn't figure out why. Tried changing water, different containers, even switched from tap to filtered water. After three months of dead plants, I noticed the sun was hitting my jars for almost six hours a day. Turns out the heat from the window was cooking the stems before roots could form. Moved them to a north-facing shelf and now everything roots in two weeks. Anyone else have a simple environmental fix that took way too long to spot?

8

andrewt41•2d ago

PSA: that free botanical garden tour last Saturday was a disaster

I went to the open house at the Ridgewood Arboretum and the guide just walked us past 40 plants without stopping. Ten minutes in my group had already wandered off because there was zero info given. How do you handle tours that feel like rushed sales pitches instead of actual learning?

23

margaretw41•2d ago

Turns out I was killing my succulents with kindness for 2 years

I had a whole shelf of succulents that looked sad and stretched out, and I couldn't figure out why. Then my neighbor Maria walked by and said I was drowning them - I was watering twice a week like my ferns. She pointed at the droopy leaves and said 'those things want to be ignored, not loved.' Now I water them once every 3 weeks and they're finally plumping up. Anyone else overwater their plants for way too long before someone called them out?

24

the_charles•2d ago

The guy at the community garden who told me I was watering wrong

I had this old timer named Frank at the Lincoln Park community garden last summer tell me I was drowning my tomatoes. He said I needed to water at the base, not the leaves, and only 3 times a week max. I thought he was crazy until my plants got leaf rot and his looked perfect. Has anyone else had some random person just walk up and give unsolicited advice that turned out to be right?

4

patricia_wells•3d ago

Rant: My fern experiment at the community garden went totally wrong

I tried to propagate 30 Boston fern cuttings at the Elm Street garden last spring, but I forgot to check the soil drainage after that big rain. Everything got waterlogged and turned yellow within 3 days. I ended up saving maybe 10 by repotting them in perlite mix and moving them under the oak tree. Has anyone else lost a batch of cuttings to something that simple?

15

jesse_cooper•5d ago

My neighbor the retired botanist told me to stop watering my fiddle leaf fig so much

So my neighbor Carol (she's like 70 and has been a plant lady for decades) saw me dumping a big glass of water into my fiddle leaf fig last week and she just shook her head. She said I was basically drowning it and that most houseplants die from overwatering not underwatering, which I thought was crazy because the leaves were all droopy. I backed off to watering like once every 10 days instead of twice a week and she also told me to stick my finger in the soil first to feel if it's dry. Three weeks later and the thing has new growth at the top and the droop is totally gone. Has anyone else had a neighbor or older gardener call them out on something simple like that?

1

charles_coleman•6d ago

Met an old gardener at the botanical garden last June who showed me how to deadhead roses properly

She stopped me while I was hacking away at some bushes and said "slow down, each cut matters" then spent 20 minutes showing me the exact angle. Has anyone else had a random stranger teach them something simple they still use years later?

19

amy_foster56•7d ago

I finally got my jade plant to flower after 6 years of trying

An older lady at the garden center told me to stop watering it so much and let it sit in a chilly spot overnight, which I thought was crazy but it worked within 3 months. Has anyone else had luck with stressing their succulents on purpose?

18

angelac63•7d ago

Had a chat with a old gardener that changed my thinking

I ran into Mr. Peterson at the community garden last Saturday. He told me he stopped using fertilizer completely 20 years ago and just adds compost twice a year. Said his tomatoes taste way better now. It hit me different because I've been dumping store bought stuff on my plants for years without thinking about the long term soil health. Has anyone else switched to just compost and seen a difference?

14

black.amy•7d ago

My prized orchid got root rot after I used a regular pot instead of a ventilated one

I kept my phalaenopsis on my kitchen windowsill in Portland for 2 years, it was doing great. Then I repotted it into a ceramic pot I found at a thrift store. Looked nice but no drainage holes. After 3 months the leaves turned yellow and the roots were all mushy. I cut away the dead roots, soaked the good ones in hydrogen peroxide, and put it back in a clear plastic pot with bark. It's been 6 weeks now and I see new root tips. Has anyone else killed a plant by getting too fancy with the pot choice?

2

gray_schmidt8•8d ago

I finally gave up on store bought soil and mixed my own for my ferns

Everyone kept telling me to just grab the big bag from the garden center, but my maidenhair ferns kept browning after two weeks. So last Sunday I tried making a mix with peat, perlite, and some orchid bark. The difference was night and day, the roots finally stopped sitting in that heavy wet mud. Has anyone else had better luck making their own dirt for picky plants?

4

miller.avery•9d ago

Found a hidden orchid blooming behind my shed last week, never knew it was there

I was clearing out an overgrown corner of my backyard in Portland and uncovered this tiny wild orchid that must have been growing unnoticed for years, has anyone else stumbled on something like that in their own yard?

2

aaron896•10d ago

Hit 200 houseplant species in my collection this weekend

I was just doing a routine count of all my plants on Saturday, getting ready for the winter dormancy period, and realized I've somehow amassed 200 different species in my little apartment. That number surprised me because I started with just a pothos cutting from a friend two years ago and never set out to collect that many. Has anyone else hit a species count that made them stop and reevaluate their watering schedule?

24

alices16•12d ago

Tried bottom watering my monsteras last spring and it fixed my fungus gnat problem

I used to just pour water on top of my pots whenever the soil felt dry. But then I had a fungus gnat invasion around March that got so bad I saw them in my bathroom too. A friend at the plant shop told me to try bottom watering instead, so I fill a tray with about an inch of water and let the pots sit for 20 minutes. It took maybe 3 weeks, but the gnats disappeared because the top soil stays dry. My monsteras put out way bigger leaves too, which I didn't expect. Has anyone else switched methods and noticed a big difference like that?

17

roberts.jordan•13d ago

Caught my first pitcher plant bloom at the bog garden yesterday

I drove out to the Pine Barrens last weekend to check on the pitcher plants at that little preserve off Route 72. After three summers of visiting, I finally spotted one starting to bloom with that weird red flower hanging down. Has anyone else had a rare plant moment where you had to wait years just to see it do its thing?

1

kai_bennett•14d ago

Found out yesterday that Venus flytraps only grow in a 75-mile radius in North Carolina

I was reading about carnivorous plants for a terrarium idea and stumbled on this. The wild ones are all basically from around Wilmington, NC, and nowhere else on Earth. Has anyone else been surprised by how specific a plant's native range can be?

22

torres.jason•14d ago

A greenhouse tour in Portland flipped my whole view on soil mixes

I was at the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden last weekend listening to a volunteer talk about their potting routine. She showed me how she layers pine bark fines and pumice instead of bagged stuff and it made so much more sense for drainage. Has anyone else tried mixing their own soil after seeing it done differently?

27

robin_wright•15d ago

The desert botanical garden near Phoenix was overhyped in my opinion

I went to the Desert Botanical Garden last month and honestly I think the natural desert around it is way more interesting. They have all these curated paths but the real variety is just off the trail in the wild brush.

6

tyler176•16d ago

Question about rooting cuttings in a simple bucket setup...

I was trying to root some fig cuttings this spring and getting nowhere with my usual potting mix method. Then I saw a post from a guy in Florida who just uses a 5 gallon bucket with perlite and a layer of water at the bottom. So I tried it with 12 cuttings of a Brown Turkey fig I got from a neighbor's tree. After 3 weeks I checked and 8 of them had nice white roots poking out. The water at the bottom kept the perlite damp without being soaking wet, and the bucket lid held in humidity. Compared to my old method where I only got 2 out of 12 to root in soil last year, this was a huge jump. Has anyone else tried the bucket method for hard to root plants like hydrangeas or roses?

14

olivers28•16d ago

The sneaky reason your seedlings keep dying on day 10

I killed three trays of tomato starts over two months before I realized my mistake. Turns out I was watering them with tap water that had too much chlorine, and it was nuking the roots right when they needed to spread out. Letting the water sit out for 24 hours before using it fixed everything. Has anyone else run into this with city water?

14

roberts.jordan•17d ago

That $60 moisture meter saved my peace lily collection

I bought a cheap moisture meter off Amazon last month because my peace lilies kept getting yellow leaves no matter what I did. I was either drowning them or letting them get bone dry. The meter was like $12 and it showed me the soil was wet six inches down even when the top felt dry. Turns out I was overwatering by a lot. Now I only water when the meter says the bottom half is dry. Has anyone else used one of these things for fussy indoor plants?

23

lee_bailey65•17d ago

That study about soil pH changing flower colors surprised me more than I expected

I was reading this blog post from the University of Vermont extension service last week, and they had a chart showing how hydrangea blooms shift from blue to pink just by adjusting soil pH from 5.5 to 6.5. I always assumed it was a specific fertilizer you had to buy, not just a simple pH change. They even gave a timeline: it takes about 3 to 4 months to see the color shift after you amend the soil with aluminum sulfate or lime. That blew my mind because I've been buying expensive color-changing products for years without knowing the real cause. Anyone else find out a simple science fact that made a bunch of your past gardening efforts feel unnecessary?

12

hugo236•18d ago

Shoutout to that $60 moisture meter I bought off Amazon

I thought I was being smart getting a cheap moisture meter for my orchids. Turns out the thing was just randomly guessing numbers, killed two of my prize phalaenopsis in a month. My buddy who grows carnivorous plants told me he had the same model, threw it away after a week. Anyone else get burned by one of those $50-and-under meters from Amazon?

2

kevin_schmidt97•19d ago

Vent: Overheard a guy at the garden center say 'just plant it deeper if the stem is leggy'

I was at the nursury on Saturday picking up some basil starts and this guy tells his friend to bury the stem deeper to fix leggy growth. I wanted to yell at him that leggy means not enough light, not a burying problem. Has anyone else had to hold their tongue while someone gives terrible plant advice?