Indoor Plant Care Tips Guide

Sort of a good news / bad news situation from the vet, though in this particular case the good and bad news are the same thing: We had more or less ruled out fleas previously, on the grounds that I've lived with fleas before, long ago, in Texas, and I remembered that vividly enough that I figured it would be perfectly obvious. But we hadn't seen any fleas jumping around or on us. We hadn't seen

Some odds and ends today. Billbergia nutans This is probably more of a random plant event than unfinished business, but: the Billbergia nutans1 is blooming again. Much smaller show than last year: then, I had seven flower spikes happen more or less at once, and so far this year it's only two. (This could be because I didn't repot this year, though it didn't actually need repotting, so if it's

Sheba's itching problem has gotten bad enough that in spots, she's bitten off all her fur and then kept going, leaving sores. You can't see them in the picture because I've deliberately chosen an angle that hides them (you might still be able to see a little bit on her back right leg), but they're there. We've tried everything we can think of here (anesthetic sprays, baths, oatmeal baths,

Hey, finally another decent orchid photo. Seems like it's been forever. I think the last one I was happy with was also a Phragmipedium, so the clear lesson here is that I should take more photos of phrags. (I was kidding when I wrote that, but when I go back and look at the Phragmipedium tag, they actually do seem to wind up being one of my better orchid-photo subjects.) Phragmipedium Haley

So the first Anthurium seedling flower (on #59, "Bijoux Tuit"1) has developed, opened, and died. Since I first reported the bud in September, that's only about ten weeks from start to finish, which is a lot faster than I expected. But Bijoux has a second flower already beginning to unfurl.2 Bob Humbug's (#76) second flower has now aborted like the first, which is starting to concern me. How am I

Yarn-bombing trees isn't a new thing, but this is the first time I've seen it in person, and I wish I'd gotten more pictures. (I had somewhere to be; couldn't be helped.) The whole downtown area appears to have been done; there are many much better photos here. There's also an intermittently awkward and under-edited interview with one of the organizers, if you're really interested:

Oh hi. Apologies for the three-day gap in posting. Imidacloprid II: The Imidaclopridatening1 has finally ended, so all that's left to do is sit around with my fingers crossed until I find out whether or not it's worked. I'm finding scale less often now, which might be a good sign. It also might just be a sign that all the really badly-infested plants were thrown away, and the ones left are only

Do all Zygopetalums look like this? It seems like they all look like this. Though usually they're less blurry.

Not much to report lately; I'm heavily preoccupied with trying to dump imidacloprid into all the plants. It isn't particularly difficult to do: it just makes watering take longer, so there's less time for anything else. And of course I'm still finding scale as I go, though less of it than I expected. Here are five things I've found interesting enough to stop and photograph, but not interesting

I'm increasingly impressed by Google's ability to figure out what species I mean when I search for a mangled name. (This one's tag: "Den lindiyl var majus.") Granted, that's a double-edged sword, since Google also likes to torment me by correcting things that I've typed incorrectly on purpose, or correcting things that aren't even wrong, just less common than whatever it thinks I should be

The Euphorbia leuconeura story continues. When we last checked in, there were flowers starting to appear on one of the two plants. It's taken longer than I was expecting, but there are now finally some seedlings popping up: Six so far in this pot (one has emerged since the photo was taken); I've also spotted one seedling in a neighboring plant's pot. Not sure what, exactly, to do with these;

Preface: as much as I'd love to claim credit for it, I did not create this form; it belongs to Mallory Ortberg at The Toast, and she's done way better things with it than this. (I particularly recommend Text Messages From a Jack-O-Lantern, though be warned: it's sad. Texts From The Lorax is also really good, and more upbeat. They're all recommended, though.) -------------------------------------

The International Orchid Register says it's Firey Leopard. The tag said Fiery Leopard (and also called both parents Potinara). Google corrects Firey to Fiery. None of the flower pictures that come up in Google image search for any combination of spelling (Firey / Fiery), parents (Firey Leopard / Martha Clarke), or genus name (Potinara / Rhynchocattleya / Rhyncattleanthe) look much like this photo