House Plants – Page 2

Clearing up a few things about Green Thumb Sunday

I’m not sure why, but lately it seems people who want to join Green Thumb Sunday are questioning putting the blogroll on their site.

As it says on the Join Green Thumb Sunday page the blogroll does not have to be in your sidebar. You can put it in a post or on a page (depending on your blogging platform) and link to that page or post from your sidebar.

The blogroll does have to be on your site if you want to be an official member of Green Thumb Sunday. The blogroll helps promote all of our sites to any visitors who happen to be on one of the Green Thumb Sunday members sites. It also easily allows members of Green Thumb Sunday to visit one another on Sundays and through the weeks to see what each member has posted for each Green Thumb Sunday.

How can you participate without knowing who the rest of the members are? Green thumb Sunday is not just about making a post on Sundays, it’s about visiting other gardening and related websites, getting idea’s from what others are doing in their gardens, and I suppose to encourage others in their gardening and landscaping endeavours.

Yes the blogroll is getting long. I knew it eventually would. That’s why I’ve always allowed the members of GTS to put the blogroll on a separate page of their site.

Another thing that looks nice and keeps your sidebars tidy is to roll up the blogroll into an expandable menu. On many of my blogs I use Flooble’s expandable script to roll up my menus, category lists, archives and so on to keep the sidebars tidy. You can customize the look of these expandable menus so that the colors suit your blogs theme too. Try it out if you’d like to.

There’s also been a few people lately who didn’t realize I suppose the blogroll would actually produce a list of blogs on their site. I think that they thought the code I was sending would just be the Green Thumb Sunday logo. The logo is in the email that I send out to people who want to join, but so is the blogroll code. The only thing that you must do in order to get on the list is put the blogroll on your site.

Another misconception that I’ve heard recently is that people think only gardening blogs are participating. Some have hesitated to join because they don’t have a gardening blog and others have decided not to join when they saw that not everyone on the list was a gardening blog.

Let me clear this up. Green Thumb Sunday is open to all. I’d love everyone to participate each Sunday but I realize that you have lives and can’t always do that. Participation is required at least once a month though.

Any kind of blog may join. All that is required is that when you make your Green Thumb Sunday post is that it be a photo of something to do with gardening, nature, wildlife or a landscape. Most people opt to post photos of the plants that they grow in their gardens or even house plants but you do not have to only post photos of plants.

I’d also like to remind all of the members of Green Thumb Sunday that we had a major slow down last winter. Now that it’s summer in the areas where most of our members live I’d like to suggest that you take some extra photos and save some of them for winter. Or during the winter months take some lovely outdoor photos of snow, ice on trees, sunlight sparkling through an icicle … anything like that is perfectly fine. Lets just keep this going through the whole year this year. 🙂

Winter care for house plants and ornamentals

by Tricia

Did you receive any ornamental house plants over the holidays? How are they fairing in your home?

As you might know many of the potted plants that you might have received over the holiday season are not usually meant to be kept as permanent house plants. They’re raised in green houses and often don’t adapt well to the conditions within your home.

Many of them do not like being kept at high temperatures. If you want to prolong their life try to keep them in full sunlight, in rooms that are between 65 F and 72 F.

If you haven’t already removed the foil around the plants pot you should do that now The foil might be preventing the plant’s pot from draining properly and roots might stay too wet and die off.

If you have Amaryllis blooming in your home right now remember to cut the faded flowers. You don’t want seeds to form as that robs the bulb of energy that should be put toward next nears growth.

House plants with large leaves such as Philodendron, Dracaena, and rubber plant will benefit from a leave wash on occasion. Rinse with clear water or a damp clothe to remove dust and grime as this will keep the leaves pores open, and help keep your plant healthy.

If you want to reflect more light towards your houseplants you can line the window sills or shelves that the plants are sitting on with aluminum foil as it will reflect the light and provide a little bit of extra light for the houseplants.

If you live in an area with mild winters remember to check your window boxes and other outside containers that might have evergreen plants in them to see if they need watering.

Want your Amaryllis to grow straight?

by Tricia

It’s actually pretty simple to make sure that your Amaryllis grows straight. All you have to do is pay attention to it and turn it every so often.

As you probably know, the Amaryllis puts out it’s lovely flowers on a tall stalk. However, just like many other plants, Amaryllis has a tendency to bend towards the source of light.

If you notice that your Amaryllis stalk or stem is starting to bend as it seeks the best source of lighting, simply turn the pot half way. The sun or light source will draw the stem toward it again and the plant will “accidentally” right itself and end up with a straight stem.

Turn your Amaryllis’ vase or pot a quarter or half turn every few days, or at least once a week to keep it straight throughout the growing season.

This is actually a good thing to do with many of your houseplants in order to have full and healthy foliage all the way around the plant.

Winter care for house plants and ornamentals

Want your Amaryllis to grow straight?

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