Bad Gardener

I've been a bad, bad gardener lately.  My other life has gotten in the way.  I took on a teaching assignment this summer that is taking up almost all of my time [three weeks till the semester ends.  I can't wait!].  What little time I have for gardening is being spent outdoors.  It's summer and I want to be outside in my garden.  Unfortunately that means that my houseplants have been neglected.  Brace yourself.  These are not pretty pictures.

Watering seems to be occurring when I notice that plants are wilting, like this African Violet.  This one hasn't been happy since I put it in this pot but the summer neglect is really taking a toll.  It's scheduled to be repotted at the next pot party.  I have the pots.  I have the potting soil.  I have the perlite.  I just don't have the time to throw a pot party.

Letting the plants dry out results in the soil pulling away from the pot like this one.  That means that when you do water the water tends to run between the pot and the soil instead of into the soil where the plant needs it.  This is scheduled for "repair" when I have my next pot party.

Several plants need to be potted up into larger pots like this Streptocarpus.  It's pot is so small it fits into a coffee mug.  Fortunately for this plant she sits over the kitchen sink so she gets watered frequently.

This snake plant should have been repotted and moved outside for the summer.  I got a cutting of my mother's snake plant that she got in the mid-1970s.  This is a cutting of a plant from a cutting of a plant that was from a cutting... Well, you get the idea.  Every time I move long distance I take a cutting and pass along the parent plant which is usually huge and healthy.

The worst news is the death of my beloved begonias.  I'll have to get more in the fall to bloom throughout the winter.  I'm not sure if it was my neglect or the heat that did them in (we do not have air conditioning and they sit in a south west facing window so...) but none of them survived.  Dammit.

On the positive side some of my plants are doing just fine despite the neglect.  I need to figure out how to support the vines on my vanilla plant.  They're outgrowing the support structure!

Soon the summer semester will be over and I'll be back to teaching Biology 101 [a course I've taught before and am very familiar with so it should require less of my time] and I'll hopefully have more time for both my outdoor and my indoor gardens.  

Only three weeks left in the summer semester.

I can make it.

I hope my houseplants can, too!