Some of my houseplants

Some of my houseplants:

If I post a few photos of some of my houseplants perhaps others might be encouraged to do the same!

‘Blood Lily’ (Scadoxas multiflorus):

‘Blood Lily’ (Scadoxas multiflorus) on living room table (Close up). The petals are almost non-existent!

 

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Lilies ‘Keynote’:

Lilies ‘Keynote’ from my daughter for Father’s Day 2014:

Lilies ‘Keynote’ & ‘Blood Lily’ on living room table with a big ‘Spider plant’ behind them:

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African Violets:

African Violets as seen in our kitchen window from the outside at the beginning of June 2014:

These are Mini-African Violets just starting out on their 2nd year with me. These are on the top shelf:

The bottom row are mostly pots of cutting of normal size AVs waiting for me to repot them – some day!

In all the years I’ve grown AVs most of them have been grown in this window – pity it wasn’t MUCH bigger! This window faces Northwest & only during late spring to early autumn does it get a few hours of direct sunshine. The plants in pots on the bottom row were all rooted over the winter in a window that face the South-east.

South-east window:

There they got whatever sunshine was available during the late autumn to early spring months.

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‘Dragon tree’:

Some of you may remember the Dragon tree in our living room, well, because of the budgies destroying it I had to move it out of our living room into one of the bedrooms so that it might, hopefully, recover. Another day I’ll make up a blog about “The Tale of the Dragon tree” & explain its story.

As this blog is about Houseplants I have to include it here with at least one photo:

 

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‘Guzmania’:

Nearly 2 years ago a sister of our daughter-in-law came over from Spain to spent 2 weeks in the UK. As we have no room in our small flat for guests she rented a bedroom for the 2 weeks in a house just 2 minutes walk from us. As I helped her a lot with her English, when it was time for her to go back home to Spain, she gave me a Guzmania plant as a thank you present for the classes I’d given her. I still have the plant which is alive & well – though it really doesn’t look very much like the specimen she originally gave me.

The ‘Guzmania’ as it looks now:

The ‘Guzmania’ as it looked 2 years ago:

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‘Amaryllis’:

Of course I couldn’t get by such a blog without at least a passing commentary on my ‘Amaryllis’. Except for a few of the smallest offsets all of my Amaryllis are now on the allotment where they will stay till October.

‘Amaryllis: Anglo-American hybrids’:

Nevertheless the Amaryllis I still have are the the ones I repotted back in March this year:

They are what I call my ‘Anglo-American hybrids’ as they originated from a cross I carried out using the pollen, from some Amaryllis a lady in the USA sent me a couple of years ago. I have about 25 of these in 5″ pots on the windowsills of our two bedrooms:

‘Amaryllis Anglo-American hybrids’ on bedroom windowsills:

I don’t have a more recent photo but they have grown considerably since this photo was taken!

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Succulent plants – ‘Kalanchoe’:

I have several different types of succulent plants as well, like this ‘Kalanchoe’ which I bought the day after Mother’s Day, in March. It was reduced in price but was in good condition:

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Sedum morganianum or ‘Lamb’s tail’:

This succulent, which I’ve had for at 4 years without knowing what it was called, makes long grey/green “tails”.

According to Wikipedia it should have pink flowers on the ends of the “tails” yet mine has never flowered! It’s only been a short time since I discovered it’s called Sedum morganianum or “Lamb’s tail’, among other names.

It has now lived in the kitchen, on top of the fridge amongst the Tradescantia zebrina, for the greater part of this year.

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‘Christmas Cactus'(Schlumbergera x buckleyi):

Another succulent I have had for many years is the so called ‘Christmas Cactus’, which isn’t a cactus at all nor does it always flower around Xmas!:

‘Easter Cactus (Hatiora rosea):

The same can be said for the so called ‘Easter Cactus’ of which I have several plants &, like the ones above, I’ve had them for many years:

As you can see from the dates on the photos they flowered this year in May!

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‘Spider plants’:

Then I have a number of Spider plants of differing ages:

This is the original from which the rest have sprung. It is at least 7 years old by now:

This plant has been sitting on our living room table for the last 3-4 years:

This is a plant about 2-3 years old which I potted up for my brother:

He decided in the end he didn’t want it as he says his flat is too dark.

In one of the bedrooms, sitting on top of the Dragon tree’s pot is another Spider plant – well, actually it’s a biggish pot with several plants in it, again originally destined for my brother:

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‘Tradescantia’ or “Wandering Jew” or “Spiderwort”:

This is the green species called Tradescantia fluminensis. It’s brilliantly polished dark green leaves are a joy to behold yet in all the years I’ve had it I’ve never yet seen a flower! It’s supposed to have small white flowers intermittently through out the year – according to the ‘RHS A-Z Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants’.

It has been in the same place & pot since 2008 at the least which is the oldest photo I have of it on my computer.

‘Tradescantia zebrina’ also known as “Wandering Jew” or “Spiderwort”:

I also have a number of pots of ‘Tradescantia zebrina’ on top of our fridge in the kitchen. I have photos going all the way back to 2007 on my computer but I suspect I have grown them there for several more years earlier even if I haven’t got any photos of them.

Like the green one above this species has never flowered for me in all the years I’ve grown it in the UK yet in Spain it always produced lots of deep pink, almost magenta, flowers.

I don’t have any decent photos of either of these two ‘Tradescantia’ for this year so far so I’ve used photos from last year. I must get a couple.

Well those are the plants that are growing in the interior of our flat at the present time, middle of June 2014.

Christmas Cacti? You’re joking!

Christmas Cacti? You’re joking!

As I have not written a blog about these lovely little plants before I thought I’d do one today.

Pink & white one flowering on our living room table:

I have had one or two plants in flower for the last month – therefore the title of this blog!

Christmas Cactus with dying flowers in the living room

This was the very first plant to start flowering this autumn.

I got the original plants many years ago from leaf cutting, bits of the leaf pad that easily break off the main plant & will usually root very well & quite quickly when put into a little compost. These pieces I found in the flower & plants section of the supermarket were my wife works. Knowing how easily they root I collected up some leaves that would otherwise have ended up in the waste bin. That no longer happens any more as the plants always come in a protective plastic sleeve but 10 years ago or more they didn’t do that, at least not for the plants in the supermarket.

Christmas Cacti with buds in our kitchen:

As we live in a flat there isn’t all that much room for plants, at least not big plants but some small plants can be accommodated! These plants are very fragile so I keep them very small, they always grow in small square 2 & 1/2″ pots or sometimes in 3″ round pots. They are never transplanted, though they do get some tomato fertilizer in the summer, (in fact ALL my plants do, even the ones grown only for their leaves! It does them no harm), & they flourish on pure neglect!

Pink & white flowering on the living room table:

Pink & white & Red flowering on our living room table:

The red ones are in the middle but they don’t show up very well, besides they were mainly buds rather than open flowers.

Red Christmas Cactus that was flowering in March this year!:

They are actually a very dark red – usually that is! The light may have made it look more a dark pink rather than red! As I have two dripping with deep red flowers I’ll have to take a couple of photos & include them here.

Here are a trio of the promised photos:

They spend their lives, when not in flower, on the windowsill in our kitchen which is about 3m long & faces South west.

I also have a number of Easter Cacti that share the same place as well. I obtained them by the same method as the Christmas Cacti & they get the same treatment – that is “pure neglect”! They don’t mind either as they also flower every year & live in the same pots as the others.

Easter Cactus flowering in our living room window:

Here is a close up of an Easter Cactus flower:

Easter Cactus flowering on balcony during July!:

I fertilize them all with tomato feed during the summer & they give me this wonderful display in the autumn.

Edited to include a note on cultivation which I’ve condensed from the “RHS A-Z Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants”:

“They are plants from the tropical rain forests of Brazil where they live on trees & require very little soil, (that’s probably the reason they can exist for so long in tiny pots!) They need a high potash feed every 4 weeks while they are growing & moderate humidity in the air & in the soil. They should be grown in bright, indirect light. They should be repotted every 3-4 years in the spring.”