Pot Party

Today is cold (well, for me) and overcast up here in New England and it's a good day to do some indoor gardening. So I threw my plants a pot party.

I grow several herbs in the house during the winter so that we have fresh herbs to cook with year round. The culinary sage has outgrown it's pot (it must like the window) and has been needing water basically every other day so I decided it needed a bigger home.

This is my basement potting area. I have a nice, big concrete sink. I want to get a board cut to go over one side of the sink so I can pot right there but for now I'm just using this old chair (and an old litter box to help contain the spilled soil. Not that I'm messy. Of course not.).


Here's the sage, a bit overgrown for it's pot. I'm growing the herbs in plastic since they started outside this fall and will go back outside early and plastic pots handle cold weather better (clay pots are more likely to crack).


And here it is after repotting, being inspected by Jasper, Quality Control Dog. Can I eat it? Can I roll in it? If not, I'm not interested.


While I was down there I potted up another Amaryllis bulb. I've been doing these at approximately 2 week intervals.

In goes a section of window screen. I don't like to put "drainage" rocks or pot shards in the bottoms of pots since I'm hoping the water will drain out the drainage holes (hence the name). I bought a few feet of window screen from the local hardware store and have been cutting it up for use in clay pots. It keeps the soil from washing out the big holes you get in clay pots. I don't bother in plastic since the holes there are usually much smaller.


This is my hand made Amaryllis support ring. I've take a single plant support and used pliers to make a bend in the bottom. Amaryllis are notoriously floppy bloomers and I haven't found a good solution so I'm trying this in conjunction with heavy clay pots (so they hopefully won't fall over). I'll let you know if it works.


Here is the (almost) completed product. I still need to cover those roots with soil but you can see the support. I put it in BEFORE adding soil so that the bent part is resting on the bottom of the pot.


Then I moved upstairs. I have a spider plant in a hanging basket. Actually I have several, these are one of my favorite house plants - they're easy to care for and they clean the air. This one is kind of heavy so I didn't want to hang it.


So I brought this pot upstairs and decided that it would look perfect, very contemporary with the square pot and the strong lines of the plant. I've usually grown grasses (outside) in this pot. We'll see how it look inside.


This is my repotting supervisor, Pigeon. Falling asleep on the job. Or more likely wondering what I'm doing waking him up during his mid-afternoon nap.


Hmm.. Yep. I think that will look just fine.


The problem with repotting upstairs is that I'm not so neat. I'll have to go sweep that up as soon as I'm done blogging so The Husband doesn't come home and roll his eyes at the mess. I didn't want to carry this pot full of soil up two flights of stairs to get it from the basement to its permanent location.


I have one more plant to pot but I'm trying to identify it first. I stopped at Kane's today to pick up a cyclamen for The Husband's Aunt who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner (plants are great all occasion gifts) and found this in the houseplant section.


The woman behind the counter called it "Lavender Lace." I Googled. There are several "Lavender Lace" plants, the closest is a Cuphea but this plant only has 5 petals and Cuphea have 6. I'm not sure what it is. Any suggestions are welcome. Otherwise it goes where I have space. Hmmm... Where DO I have space for another houseplant? Uh-oh.