What's your worst looking plant?
It's been dull here so I thought I'd start a funnish thread.
We all show of our best plants and our amazing recoveries but what about the plants that aren't so shabby looking? Ones that either always look terrible or you always forget so they look terrible yet still keep going.
For me, it's actually a group of succulents I have.
It has 2 jades, a pony palm, 1 burros tail (I think) and 3 Sempervivum.
The jades I actually got almost 4 years ago as we had an auction In class to raise money so we were suppose to bring in an item. So I went to Homedepot and got a 4" pot of jades to bring. I started to have the feeling that I wanted to keep it and that I didn't want it to go die in some hands of a 7th grader but I couldn't keep it. Me being the clever guy I am was like wait! I'll root some cuttings! So I snipped off 2 stems placed them in a pot then left them in a window to die. This was a time before I got into house plants. Years later it looked like a shrivelled old man who got badly burnt. I have no idea how it's still alive today.
The burros tail was a gift from my friend that I got 2 years after the whole jade ordeal. I'm a bit fuzzy on how it went from 4 to only one but I do remember putting it outside when it was just sticks (it lost all of its leaves) to have the leaves grow back than get completly destroyed by hail. That left me to one lone stem.
The Pony palm used to be in a group with 4 others. It did actually quite good in my house untill last year I decided to put it outside. One of the biggest hail storms came when I was away and totally ripped it apart as well as my schefflera and spider plant. I chopped off all the damaged leaves and was left with a really sad plant. There's pictures of it in my Ideabook. For some reason I decided to ditch 3 of them and only grow the biggest one alone. I still have their bodies on display. 2 are actually still green so I might try an experiment to see if they'll grow roots if I add them back to soil I doubt it but worth a shot .
After I saw purps succulent dish (I think) I wanted to do the same. So I took all the misfits and stuck em in one pot than placed them in my South East window with my Haworthia. They didn't do much for the next while so I decided to add some Sempervivum chicks from my garden into the pot last year and this is where I'm at today. Which is no where close to as good as hers or even pleasing to the eye
It's behind my birdcage so it gets dusty and full of feathers and I always mange to forget it's there and not water it. But it's still going. I'm going to repot it all I think this summer or sometime and add more succulents to make it looks better. Maybe give the pony tail palm its own pot. Not sure yet.
Here it is (after a incredibly long post that wasn't really needed)
Let's see yours! And this is a no judgement zone! :P
Comments (12)
Kim
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoOh goody, one for me to shine in! My dieffenbachia is the saddest of its kind in existence. It was my mom's, for some reason she hated it and tried to kill it by banishing it being her TV stand, where it grew to be five feet tall with a single leaf. She wanted to toss it when I helped her move, but I took it with us across country. It broke, sprouted another leaf, and repeated this several times. I called it "the stick". I had it rooted in soil, it grew to be a foot and a half tall with all of three leaves and I found the suggestion of cutting off the top and rerooting. Which is were it is at now, will be planted again before too long in dirt but it seems to hate nearly every corner of my house except the one place there isn't really enough room for it.
*edit, if anyone has tips on helping out my three leaved wonder here, I would appreciate it. I am not even a huge fan of these, but I have kept it alive this long out of pity and its dogged refusal to die, would be nice to have something halfway decent to show for the effort. ;)
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8 years agoKim
8 years agorina_Ontario,Canada 5a
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoMrBlubs
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
stonetreehouse
8 years agoMy struggling plant is a member of the same family group as my best-looking, favorite plant, a Hoya. In 2012, I purchased a cutting of the ever-popular Hoya kerrii, a variegated version. While it did root and grow, it's been agonizingly slow and some of the older leaves just looked old and tired and pathetic. I've tried every combination of light, exposure, humidity, watering regimen, fertilizers, etc,, all to no avail; it just looked kind of sad. While I have moved most of my plants into a more gritty mix, I've been somewhat afraid to move this one until I really get a better handle on hitting its happiness factor. I've been careful to not overwater the potting mix, which is mixed heavily on the perlite side. I've never seen parasites on it, but I finally broke down and just sprayed it with Bayer systemic insecticide (outside, of course). I put it out on my covered front porch for the summer and have just been ignoring it. I peeked at it the other day and it's actually grown a few new leaves, so things might be looking up for that plant, but it's not beautiful, not yet (and after three years, it really should look better than this, I feel). I took cuttings of it but had no luck rooting it and it really can't spare too many leaves at this point. I love this type of hoya and I know how "easy" they are supposed to be, but this one is a toughie for me. Still working on it. . . .
Kim
8 years ago
Rhamel (aka teengardener1888)
8 years ago
asleep_in_the_garden
8 years agoKim
8 years agoasleep_in_the_garden
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
rina_Ontario,Canada 5a