Houseplants in Jeopardy

Lately, Henry has been a destroyer of all things, especially those things that make a mess when destroyed. Let's take my houseplants, for example.

I've been taking quite drastic measures in order to try to protect my plants. I don't have rare or delicate plants, but the spot by my front door works especially well because of the amount of sun that comes in through the side windows. My plants seem to love this particular location. I am rather proud of the fact that I've kept them alive for so long. At least until dear Henry came along.

No, I did not let him smash the dirt (and the plant) with his hands while I snapped pictures. I came upon him in the aftermath, and figured that if I had to clean up the mess anyway, I might as well have some pictures to document the destruction.

The thing is, Henry is pretty single-minded. When he wants to destroy something, he will keep coming back again and again. If I block off whatever he's trying to get to, he will either find a way to bypass my makeshift childproofing or wail pitifully until Nick bypasses the childproofing. The end result? We had to move my plants for the time being.

Greenery, Fresh Air, and Piles of Paper

That's what is in my classroom, anyway. Since most of my plants have been divided at least once (if not two or three times), greenery is everywhere. (So are piles of paper and random clutter, but that's a quirky part of my personality. Or an annoying part, if you ask my husband.)

The air in my classroom, however, is far fresher than most. I knew that plants produced oxygen, and that indoor environments benefitted from the addition of different kinds of plants. But what I didn't know was how certain plants actually eliminate toxins from the air. I just knew that my asthma has been better since working in this environment. The air also feels and smells better to me, even in the winter when the building is closed up.

Last week, Melissa Arteaga-Marti from Costa Farms emailed me a link to their new magazine, "Growing Style." Here is the link:  growingstylemag.com. Please check it out if you have a chance; there are some really good articles about indoor vertical gardening and the healing powers of plants.


My favorite article was the one called, "The Air in There," which discusses different kinds of houseplants and the indoor pollutants they help get rid of, depending on how many you have. My classroom and home are both filled with houseplants, and I add new ones frequently. After reading this article, I'm thinking I will need to search for some anthuriums and goldon pothos. Oh, and several orchids for my bedroom.

Potting Soil, Sunshine, and Tummy Time

The problem with houseplants is that once you figure out how not to kill them, they start reproducing. Soon, they need to be divided. This was my dilemma last weekend. I had about twelve plants that were overcrowded and needed splitting. Thankfully, flowerpots were on deep clearance at Target, and the weather was gorgeous.

While Nick was napping, Henry and I headed outside for some serious plant work.

I've been trying to put Henry on his tummy as much as possible when it's not nighttime, because the back of his head is getting somewhat flat. Henry, helpfully, generally enjoys being on his tummy, and he can even turn from his tummy to his back, when he is in the mood.

Henry had quite a nap in the shade, though I had to keep dragging his blanket further towards the tree as the sun changed positions. I was out in the front yard for at least 4 hours.

Here is the work while in progress. My young helper is our next-door-neighbor, who graciously offered to help with re potting, fertilizing, cleaning off the brown leaves, and watering the plants so they didn't go into shock.

I bet that counted as a workout. Some of my plants that I brought home from school in June have split two times now. I have a few plants that split into three or even four new plants. I'm rather proud of how they turned out.



Nesting, Part One: Downstairs

So have I told you my peonies are blooming? When I saw the first one start to flower, it freaked me out just a bit. For months, I've been watching the peonies grow up from the dirt, knowing that once they bloomed, this baby was not far behind.

Um, well, they've bloomed. We never did get around to tying them up, but they're still pretty. See Nick helping me repot plants? Well, mostly he dumped dirt on the sidewalk and tried to steal my scissors.

That brings me to the nesting instinct. This is the urge that pregnant women get to stock up, organize, and get the home ready for the baby. I read somewhere that when the nesting instinct kicks in, a baby is not far behind. For me, that means I only have a few days left. This baby is being born on Thursday, and I'd better be ready. When Nick was born, I was only 37 weeks and I never had the full-fledged urge to organize. Frankly, this urge has got to be biological, because I am normally the least organized person on the planet. But in the last week or so, we've been cleaning and organizing like mad. Starting with my plants. . .

As I've mentioned before, my classroom is a jungle--I believe I had something like 30 plants there this year. Previously, I've just left them in my classroom over the summer and gone in to water them every week or so. There's a very nice janitor who checks on them for me and waters them if they need it, in between visits. However, the roof on my school is being replaced, and I won't be able to get into the building, so all of the plants have to go. Some of them were root-bound pretty badly, so Nick and Grandma Toni and I spend a few hours on Thursday splitting and repotting them. We'll see if they survive.

We got a lot accomplished this week, thanks to that nesting instinct. Greg did a lot of the heavy work--he cleaned out the screened-in porch, installed the car seats, set up my plant stand, found the vibrating bouncy seat, and located/cleaned all of the baby bottles. That's just what he did downstairs!

This may well be the first (and the last) time you ever hear of me voluntarily cleaning out the kitchen cabinets, but I did it. Blame it on the nesting. I started with the one where the baby and toddler stuff is kept.

I put all of Nick's stuff on the left, and the new baby's stuff on the right. The top shelf is for wine, beer, and booze-related items--Greg can darned well reach to the top shelf for those. Notice how I have several kinds of formula stocked. I'm rather proud of my strategy. A couple months ago, when I started going for regular NSTs (non-stress tests) at the OB's office, I grabbed a baby formula sample. The nurse saw me and said, "You know, you can take one of those any time you come in. They bring us more all the time." So I did. I've been grabbing a formula sample during each of my bi or tri-weekly doctor's appointments, and stockpiling them. I have tons more under the counter, too. Several times, I asked the nurses which formula they thought was best. "Take one of each kind," they said. "Then you can decide for yourself." I didn't turn them down.  :)  By the way, I'm going to try to breastfeed again, but I had a breast reduction back in '96, so I will definitely have to supplement with formula.

Then I moved on to my drawers. I wish I'd taken a before picture. This drawer (above) had to be slammed shut each time because there was so much junk in it. I pulled out the whole drawer, washed it, and reorganized everything inside. It is very nice to know where all of my measuring spoons are at the same time. For weeks, I've been doing funny things like measuring 1 1/2 tsp. with a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon, six times. . . because, you see, I could only find that one spoon.

Onward to the freezer. Greg and I had our cleaning lady come out and scrub the house top to bottom. She cleaned the fridge, pantry, and freezer so that I could stock up. . . and stock up I did! I go to a place called Simply Homemade in Naperville, where I made 17 of my own meals. They filled the freezer, but at least we won't starve in the next few weeks. The brilliant part of this place is that I actually assembled every meal myself, so they'll be home cooked when we make them.

My pantry will only look like this for about a week. I still have more pantry stocking to do, but I'm pretty sure we're good for food. I even made cookies. Okay, those have nothing to do with nesting. I just like cookies.

Welcome to the Jungle!

Remember last Sunday, when I showed off all of the plants that Melissa from Costa Farms sent me? Well, I promised to show pictures of all the plants in my classroom, and today I shall. There are so many plants in our classroom that when new people come in, I say, "Welcome to the jungle!"

My students love all of the plants, and they're excited when I let them help me water them. I absolutely love the feel of my room, and I think the plants make it feel more welcoming in my room. Also, I feel like the air is better in the room, too. Pardon the mess. I organize with messy piles. I was very excited this year, because this is the first school year ever that I haven't had to move. Yup, that's right. I've been teaching since 2000, and every school year has meant a new classroom for me. Until this year. I got to stay in this amazing space with a great view and three windows! The sunlight makes me happy.   :)

Most of the plants are really easy to care for, and one of my favorites is the plant in the pink pot. It has green leaves with a little bit of pink on them. You may notice, however, that I've killed the mums. Sigh. I don't know what I did wrong. Oh well, I guess one of the plants was bound to die. Hopefully the rest of them will persevere.

My very favorite plant is still the croton, and it looks very healthy. That's the one on the file cabinet. I know it's supposed to get shade, but in this spot the croton gets indirect sun for only an hour or so a day. All of the plants on this shelf are supposed to be shade plants, but some sun sneaks over first thing in the morning. Regardless, it seems to be working.

The peace lilies near the door are just gorgeous, too. I get compliments on them from whoever walks through the door.

Besides the dead mums, I think the hardest plant to take care of has been the fern. It is very pretty and I love it, but it drops leaves like crazy and I can't seem to get the amount of water right. I've been watering it every two or three days, and it still seems dry. I soak it pretty well, too, until water runs out the bottom.

I will keep doing my best to keep the plants alive. Thanks again to Melissa from Costa Farms for the beautiful plants.I can't wait to do my plant units with students in the spring. We'll have so many examples to look at!

What on Earth is in those boxes?

A little over a week ago, my mother-in-law greeted me at the door after work with a question: "What on Earth is in those boxes?" Apparently, two humongous boxes had been delivered during the day.

My mother-in-law is used to strange boxes being delivered during the day, because I order lots of stuff from ebay. But she'd never seen boxes this big. I was really, really excited, and Nick was very curious.

So what was in the boxes? Let me show you.

These are just some of the plants I was sent. I had recently been contacted by a lady (also named Melissa) who works for Costa Farms. She had read my blog and heard I was looking for plants for school. She asked me if I'd like to try some plants for my classroom. I said sure, because you can never have too many plants in a classroom. I thought she might send me two or three nice plants. Instead, she sent me 25! Nick really loved touching all the leaves and saying, "Plants!"

This was one of my favorite plants. It is simply beautiful, and I'm desperately hoping I can keep it alive. It's a croton, but I like to call it a crouton.

See the bonsai tree? That was Greg's favorite, and we decided to keep that one at home. There's also a neat bamboo plant and some really healthy looking succlents. I love them all. I'm wondering which ones I'll kill first, and hoping that it isn't too many of them. I'm pretty attached. I was very impressed at how healthy all of the plants were. Not one showed any signs of over or under watering, even after being shipped from Miami!

I totally adore the pink peace lilies (2nd from the left). I also liked how many of these plants are pretty tolerant and enjoy shade. Melissa from Costa Farms really paid attention to what I told her about the lighting in my classroom. The only thing I had trouble with was that most of the plants came with no instructions about how much light or how much water each plant needed. I called my mom on the webcam and she gave me general instructions for each one. (I tried to remember, but forgot some of the details.) We kept some of the plants at home, so I'm hoping the cats don't eat them. Sebastian, especially, likes to munch on green things.

Then, at school, I used the internet to try to figure out the names and conditions. Hopefully I've put plants in their correct locations.

I'll post again next week and show pictures of how the plants in my classroom fared, at least thus far. Now, when new people visit my room, I can say, "Welcome to the jungle!" because the whole room is green with healthy plants. I happen to think the room smells nicer, too. Certainly nicer than the scent of 5th graders.  ;)

Gardening Advice Needed, Please

We built it! Or, I should say, Greg built it, I directed, and Nick did everything he could to prevent us from getting it done.  He especially liked climbing into the beds, trying to grab Greg's screwdriver, and running away from us down the sidewalk.

 Greg and I decided that we'd like to do more in the yard this year, so the first project on our agenda was to build a raised bed system. A few weeks ago, we purchased a raised bed garden kit from Costco, and it's been sitting in our garage taunting us ever since. But Greg got all of the pieces together today, and I went over to Home Depot to get horse manure, mushroom compost, hummus, organic garden soil, and peat.

This is what the kit said our garden is supposed to look like, come summer. We shall see. We did chose a more curved setup, but we like the way it looks in the corner of our yard.

Here's how it looked with the cold weather panel and all of the soil filled in. I planted three rows of spinach seeds from the Seed Saver's Exchange, but everything else I bought says that it can't be planted until after the last risk of frost (end of May around here). My question is, since I have the cold frame, can (or should) I plant something in there now, one month early? What is safe to plant that would survive in a cold frame with a decent seal? (zucchini, beans, rosemary, cucumber) What would do well direct planted into a cold frame? Or can I transplant some of my indoor stuff that's been under the flourescent lights? Those are doing really well.

Oh, and I could also use some help identifying the plants I grew from seed. I have tomato, pepper, basil, thyme, broccoli, and I forget what else. You see, my mini-greenhouses came with these convenient little plastic things to write down what you're planting. So I used them. The first time I watered, however, all of the writing washed right off and now I'm only guessing as to what I have planted here. Any advice would be helpful. Otherwise I suppose the plants will tell me eventually. For example, if the plant makes a bell pepper, I'll have my answer. If it makes a tomato, it must be a tomato plant. Sigh. Can you tell I'm still a beginning gardener?

The plants are doing really well under the fluorescent lights, although the neighbors must wonder what I'm growing up there--the lights are so bright they light up the neighborhood. Heck, I guess I couldn't tell them what I'm growing, either. I do know that I only planted vegetables and herbs--I'll have to wait and see what kind.  :)

Lovely Ivy Ambiance and a Student Driver

Nick went for a little drive around the cul de sac today. He's loving the freedom of his learner's permit as he honks the horn and turns the key. We need a sign on the back that says, "Student Driver."

Thank goodness for the handle on the back that lets Daddy push. In about 15 years, I'll be wishing his car had a handle on it. Kind of like the imaginary brake that my daddy used when he'd slam his foot down onto the floor while teaching me to drive.

Nick had his 9 month doctor's appointment this week. During the 15 minute wait for the doctor, Nick managed to tear the paper off the exam table and chew on it. He tried to pull out the childproof covers on the electrical outlet, and he nearly crawled off of the exam table.

Then, when the doctor came in, he bit her and attempted to steal her jewelry. (Nick loves bracelets, thus why I cannot wear them anymore.) She was a good sport about the whole thing, and was impressed with his crawling abilities.

Most importantly, though, Nick is very healthy. He's over his coxsackie virus, and he is wiggling around like a baby his age should. The doctor said that if Nick is driving us crazy, then he's being developmentally appropriate. I guess he is growing very well and is meeting his milestones, so that is great news.

Here he is trying to get into my purse in the waiting room. Nicholas charmed all of the nurses and the other patients, crawling over by them and cooing and grinning. This boy is a big flirt, and driving isn't the only issue I think I'm going to have with him at 15. I believe the ladies will be a factor for this flirtatious fellow.

This was the first full week of school for my students, and I spent the week immersed in paperwork, filing, and test administration. This year is so much better for me than last year, though, because of the simple addition of windows. I believe I must have a touch of that seasonal affective disorder, because I was moody and down last year while teaching in a windowless interior space. Everything seems okay so far this year, because have plants and fresh air and even sunshine, on occasion. The ambiance of the room is welcoming and homey, and everyone who comes in comments on the plants. Since part of my job is to get kids to talk, having the plants as a starting point adds to their value.

My original intention was to take pictures of all of my classroom plants, so that later on, when I kill them, I will have a record of how nice they looked. But after taking the first picture and trying to frame the second, I stopped. You see, I couldn't show the plants on my desk without showing off the mess. Folders were stacked hither and yon. Leftover lunch dishes mixed with student prizes and draft versions of service schedules. No matter what angle I tried, my part of the room still looked, well, disorganized and messy.

So I decided to highlight my favorite plant, this hanging ivy that I got for $4 at Lowe's from the nice lady who offered to give me an extra 50% off. I shall be returning to Lowe's for all of my plant needs; I got some real winners. I want to buy a few more pots and maybe one or two more hanging planters. Next week perhaps, when I have cleaned off all of the piles and such, I will take a picture of my wonderful work space for all to admire. But isn't just this one window corner lovely? I have a pretty tree, a hanging ivy plant, and tons of fresh air.