Friday, May 4, 2007

Detail of the Week: CSI Houseplant

Okay, truth time: I haven't done a damn thing about the detail of the week because I've been busy working on my lecture notes so Miss Kitty doesn't pull a Big Sister-ish move and beat me silly with a Barbie for not being prepared. However, since it's spring, a sista needs help. This houseplant of mine is nearly about dead, and I don't know why. It's in the kitchen, the most humid room in the house that also has windows (east facing), and it also stays pretty warm, what with me always baking cookies and turkey enchiladas not three feet from said plant. It sits on a former shoe rack with three tiny recently-dead mini-roses (sorry , Mom, I didn't get them replanted fast enough) and above my herb pot, which is mostly inundated with angry parsley that has managed to beat up the rosemary and spearmint.

Anyway, this random houseplant with arrowhead-shaped leaves is dying in a straw-ish basket on a dish of pea gravel.

Wait, at the top of the photo: is that a green leaf? WTF? What's going on with my plant? Let's get a closer look:


There are three small green leaves peeking out of the brown mass of crunchy dead-looking leaves. So it's almost dead, but not quite? I've been watering it regularly, or so I thought....? Just to the side of the plant (behind the photographer) is a thriving ivy plant. What gives? So many of you out there know how to grow things. Help!

In other news, I have Yoga Cats. Sometimes they help me do my poses by threading through my legs while I do Revolved Triangle Pose, but yesterday morning they were just snuggled up and watching me. Here was the view from my yoga mat:

That's Maddy in the floor on my messenger bag and Hazel on the Frank Lloyd Wright "Waterlilies" throw on the chaise. just enjoying the early morning sun and watching Mama attempt Crow Pose and fall face-first onto her mat.

4 comments:

The Jotter said...

Pull off the dead stuff, give it less sun, and maybe water it a little more often without using too much water at each quenching. It probably needs repotting, too, but wait for this trauma to pass.

If I were you, I'd also not let on that you posted pics of it on the web looking mostly dead. Plants are funny about those things.

Enginerd said...

Can't help you with the plant - All mine are silk from the store. Except the ones mum and dad buy when they are here because they think "surely, she can't kill THIS one".

ha ha.

Can you hear Hazel?

"Look at the Pixie creature doing those movements again. You would think she would finally realize she's not doing the right positions after we have tried and TRIED to coach her."

And then Maddy:

"I know. I told you humans were stupid. " le sigh "At least Pixie isn't a dog."

Lilylou said...

Where there's life, there's hope, Pixie! Maybe that's what the cats are thinking too. What lovely girls you are raising----the cats, that is. I don't know what gender your leaves are.

Anonymous said...

MHP, you have as much luck with plants as I do. I don't buy plants any more, I just go to the store and look at them. Just having me look at them is enough to kill them. I would suggest the use of high quality plastic plants from now on.