Monday, December 29, 2008

My New Monster-Plant Friends

Well, it's December and I don't have much outside growing - except maybe some spinach, so I picked up some new indoor plant friends.

A little plastic terrarium of carnivorous plants! It contains a pitcher plant, a venus flytrap, and a sundew plant. I am going to try to take good care of these little monster plants this time. Last time, well, things didn't go so well:



I keep their dried up corpses around to remind myself of how I murdered them. I am going to try again and this time, I will:

A) NOT overwater them
B) NOT water them with rainwater collected from my roof (apparently they are REALLY sensitive and this can poison them)
C) NOT overfeed them (a venus flytrap trap can only eat 4 bugs before it dies - you can literally feed these guys to death)
D) Stop touching them so much (all that opening and closing stresses the little guys and kills them)
E) Give them enough light but NOT in direct Texas sunlight by the window in the afternoon (really this one should be obvious, but well, you know how it goes...).

OK - so houseplants aren't really my thing, but I am never one to give up and I am therefore trying again. THIS time I read up on these monster plants and I think I can handle it. They thrive on neglect. I loved my other ones to death. Poor little guys - they were like that proverbial goldfish that goes home in a plastic bag to be dumped in a too-small glass bowl and cared for by a five year old kid that then dumps half the can of fish food into the bowl at feeding time. They were doomed. But I will do better this time! Really!

Here are my new friends:



Wish them luck!

2 comments:

katina said...

thinkgeek?

Also, the word verification is "mistings" which just may be the answer here.

Lee17 said...

Katina,

Yep. I bought the thinkgeek monster-plant kit originally, but the seeds never came up (probably my fault in some way, shape, or form) so I bought a bunch of little guys and threw them in the dome. But then I murdered them (I still feel bad about that).

And I agree - misting is the way to go. I just bought a new spray bottle and some distilled water. I hope to keep my new plants alive this time ;)