| Utterly surprising myself, I found myself interested in palm trees and other exotic plants one early summer month in 2003. So I browsed the net to find information on how to keep my plants happy. Now I have to store all the useful links somewhere. This is where they are. |
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29/07/03: Presently I try to keep a cocos nucifera alive, which suddendly
appeared in my main work room. It is experimentally lit by one of these
21W energy saving light bulb replacements. Well, have to wait and see if
it likes it here, gets enough light, water, humidity, warmth.
A few days after cocos adpted me, I was browsing through a local plant shop and a rather cute musa acuminata jumped up and down in front of me, so I just had to take it with me. The lowest two leafs have brown edges, but otherwise it looks fine up to now. I also found a random yucca tree, about 2.5m tall. It looks rather neglected, but still alive. The uppermost leafs are bright green instead of dark which I think means it gets too little light, which in itself is not surprising taken the rather dark corner it is in right now, but I cannot easily move it anywhere else. Also the lowest leafs are all yellow and dry. 28/08/03: Yesterday I found, to my utter delight, that my musa acuminata sprouts a small shoot about 3cm high. I will wait until this one is at least 15-20cm tall, before planting it out on its own. It certainly has to have own roots before I will even try to do so again. Also, the musa acuminata 'bananarama' I had to take home with me after I came back from Strasbourg, seems to like it on the balcony, too, where all my plants reside now. There simply was not light enough in my work room. It was a good day after all, since my little fern shows a new shoot as well. I am happy. 21/09/04: It's now been over a year that I last wrote about the plants living here. There have been drastic changes. First of all, cocos couldn't be convinced to survive and died some months after the last entry. But on the other hand I've now got lots of different kinds of musa acuminata 'bananarama' and musa acuminata 'tropicana', the largest one being the one mentioned above, now over 1.5m high and at least that wide as well. Another majestic plant now adorning my living room is a similarly sized alocasia wentii, growing huge leafs to my utter delight. At some time in late August, two chamaedorea metallica found their way into my flat. They live here now. A young ravenala madagascariensis now cuddles close to the large bananas in search of light, of which there is now one of these sodium high pressure thingies hanging up high. My girlfriend sowed mirabilis jalapa seeds which are sprouting now as well, the first one about 10cm tall (germinated 06/09/04). I did the same with chamaerops humilis seeds which take their time in germinating, but I'll be patient. Above mentioned small fern had too little light and didn't really grow noticeable. Since I put it onto a brighter shelf it likes it there and grew about 10cm as well. On another window sill, a strelitzia nicolai wonders if this is the proper place for it, as probably does the polyscias scutellaria `Fabian', which is put in the middle of my work room. I built a matrix, listing the plants living here, which I will fill up with additional information as I get it. It is supposed to list the hardiness and other requirements of my plants, ranging from temperature over light to humidity and fertilising. 25/11/04: Obviously, I've been watering my polyscias a bit too much, it's loosing its top leaves. Five of them dropped in the last few weeks. |