Do you have plants in your house? Live or silk?

[arwalden]

All I can say is HOORAY FOR SILK PLANTS!! I can't keep a live plant alive (and looking good) no matter how hard I try. But the silk ficus trees and hanging baskets ALWAYS look good!

Some of them are EXTREMELY realistic... and I've even gotten compliments on them and was asked for advice on how I managed to keep my palm tree looking so good. (Or maybe they were putting me on.)

-- Allen

P.S. Spouses, children, and roommates do not count as plants. :-)

[huskerlaw]

1. Mine are alive

but just barely. I'm not so good with the whole watering thing.

[kick-ass-bob]

6. water?

so that's the secret?

crap!

[paulk]

2. well - we have real plants

they live on the porch all summer, making it a glorious place. Then we bring them inside for the winter, where they all die because there's not enough light. It kind of sucks, actually.

[puddycat]

7. do you have a skylight anywhere? try putting them under it.

The light from the skylight is oftentimes enough to keep plants alive, although some will shed some leaves for a while.

Plants especially like the conditions in a bathroom under a skylight. The humidity is higher. Don't water them too often!

[paulk]

15. it's on the drawing board

I think we can afford to put one in - though it may have to wait til next year. Our 5 year plan for remodeling turned into ten... and now that's turning into fifteen. :)


We have managed to keep our bigger plants alive these past few years - we have a seven ft. ficus that's 4 years old. Some pretty big tropical things that do ok if right next to the window... of course, that makes the rest of the house darker! Sigh....

[Rabrrrrrr]

17. You can also use regular light bulb lighting

In my apartment in NYC, I had no sunlight coming into the room, so I put a couple small wattage lights above the plant stands and turned the lights on in the morning and turned them off at night. When I left for vacations, I turned the lights on and left them on.

The plants all thrived.

Proper plant lighting would have been even better, I'm sure, but a few 20 watt bulbs seemed to do wonders.

[paulk]

19. that's a good idea...

We've got about 40 potted plants, and in the past there's only been about 8 of them that we've made a real effort to keep alive.

I've got a little space in the basement I can set up some lights - I'd like to save at least half this year -

I'll give it a try.

[demnan]

3. No I have real plants

I have African Violets in my kitchen window, a spider plant a large spikey dark plant and a couple of palm trees.

At work I have African Violets, Bamboo a palm and one of those vines it's impossible to kill.

A house without African Violets is not a home.

[Infomaniac]

4. A few questions, if I might pick your brain?

We have a very active cat that we affectionately call Fat-a$$ and we will be adopting another kitten in the not-so-distant future. Do you have animals? If so, how are they with the silk plants? I fully expect that Fat-a$$ and a new kitten will make a silk plant out to be either a new cat bed or new cat toy. Also, how do you recommend cleaning the plants which I assume attract their share of dust and/or animal hair?

[arwalden]

12. We have a small dog....

... when she was a puppy, she though it was great fun to dig the decorative sphagnum moss out of the pot that the fake palm was in (then she's proceed to chew it... or eat it?)

We solved that problem with some bitter-apple spray... it didn't take her long to figure out that it wasn't as fun as she once thought, and the behavior stopped. (I think it was just a teething thing... and an an exploring-adventure thing.)

Now, she ignores them.

-- Allen

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

5. Do we need a third category?

Formerly live?

[jdots]

8. our silk plants died,the real ones became polyester

we actually have lots of plants all doing well,silk flowers are the way to go,they don't die and the water doesn't stink.Certain vine plants will grow around a t.v. to avoid it.

[alittlelark]

9. Lots of live ones

I love my plants, The cats love the 'jungle'.

[CatWoman]

10. Live

I have close to 100 houseplants.

:D

[pagerbear]

11. I can barely keep myself going, let alone plants!

[Rabrrrrrr]

14. Hi PagerBear!

Long time no see. How're tricks?

We had our first choral concert last week - it was all Alice Parker/Robert Shaw crap, but the music was totally icky and kind of fun to sing. And we sang the hell out of it! Good concert.

[pagerbear]

18. Hi Rabrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Haven't turned any tricks lately, but you'll be the first to know when it happens.

Sometimes the fun of singing transcends the music. And sometimes it doesn't. Depends on my mood. I had to drop out of a choral group I'd joined this fall--just for the holiday concert, I hope--because I found myself overextended. It was a good group, singing challenging music, and the members were fun. Just not enough days in the week or hours in the day. (I used to hate when people said that--I never understood!)

[Rabrrrrrr]

24. Yes. It is just fun to sing and to make music, whatever that music may be

I thank God for the opportunity to do so.

Also agree on the time thing - as I get older, I'm more and more understanding that phrase of not enough days or hours in the day...

[Rabrrrrrr]

13. Only living plants for me

Though I agree with you about the possible realistic quality of silk plants - some of them are pretty amazing. Especially the ones that vary the coloring in the leaves and even some few little brownish/yellowish spots like real plants have.

But personally, I prefer the real things (they air filters, and add a nice scent, and a nice touch watching them grow) and I don't like the dust collection potential of the fake ones. Plus, of course, the quantum chakra realignment that comes from the living tissue when aligned with the magnetic lines of the Earth Goddess and the orgone generating quality of the crystals I put in each plant based on fen shui principles, when my astrologer gives me permission.

But if you can't keep a plant alive, by all means, go for silk! Better them than not having any silk ones at all.

[arwalden]

22. I Wonder If The Shakti Stones Would Help??

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. I bet they would!

I'll give it a try after I have my priest come by. I have a problem with stray ions in my apartment, and need the priest to realign the quantum anodes of the Energy flow. I can just *feel* the bad ion waves in here.

[arwalden]

25. Chemtrails Are Killing My Plants!! That's IT!!!

I need a cloud buster! (tm)

[Rabrrrrrr]

31. Absolutely!

And just before posting this, I pulled a Tarot card - it was the jug carrier!

[arwalden]

36. Meaning What? It's Time To Water Our Plants? Or...

that it's time to have a nip while we whittle stick on the front porch and play our banjos?

[Rabrrrrrr]

37. Well, duh, it means Saturn is rising in Mars' eliptical wedge with a

scant nod to Scorpio and his consort, Orion's Belt.

So you should do something for yourself this month, but NOT something that involves the outside or things with corduroy. It also means the stock market will fluctuate.

[bif]

16. I've got a grapefruit plant that I started from seed 30 years ago!

Among other live plants.

[blindpig]

20. live

mostly cuttings from the terrarium and escapees from ms bp's flower shop. And some carnivores.
I do use some "silk" as cage furniture for my reptiles. Durable and sterilizable.

[MissMillie]

21. only one live plant

and I managed to put it somewhere where the cats can't reach it and kill it. (None of my cats like plants.)

[sangh0]

26. I had a LIVE ficus going for years when I lived at home

I took it home from a store I worked at while I was still living at home. About 5 years later, I moved out and I took the ficus with me.

It lasted about another two weeks.

[BlueHandDuo]

27. Three live plants and a silk ficus...

...a Boston fern hanging over the toilet, a pothos on the office bookcase, and a damn-I-forgot-what-you-call-em in the living room.

[BlueHandDuo]

35. DIEFFENBACHIA! That's what you call...

...the one in the living room. Why do I keep forgetting that name?

[ScreamingMeemie]

28. I am not good with living things...ask my kids.

;) Seriously, I have a black thumb and kill things even when I take really good care of them. But silk is a pain because it gets all dusty. So, once a year, I bring new plants in to torture and eventually murder. I kind of feel really bad about it. :(

[Dzimbowicz]

29. Live

Venus fly traps and aloe.

[politicat]

30. Yep - live ones... and I used to have a black thumb.

Okay, here's the secret. Plant Gel. It's this polymer that retains water, so I mix it with the soil, and I can basically water once every 2 weeks.

http://www.seedman.com/plantge.htm

We do tend to do drought tolerant and easy care plants - we have bamboo and catnip and wheatgrass flats for the kitties, philodendrons and ivy where the kitties can't get to them, some succulents and cacti and African Violets. I've got herbs in the kitchen and tomato, lettuce and peppers in pots elsewhere.

The gel is not organic, so if that's a concern for you, you'll have to skip it. However, my friend the chemist sent my tomatoes through the gas spectrometer at CU and couldn't find anything nasty in them.

Pcat

[supernova]

32. Silk flowers

my sister makes silk arragments so beautiful you swear they are real.

I can't keep a plant alive to save my life. My Dad had the most wonderful green thumb. He could put a seemingly dead stick in the ground and it would take root. I did not inherit that trait, unfortunately.

[Pithlet]

33. I want silk plants

I,too, cannot keep a plant alive to save my life, except for one. There is a church that keeps leaving us freebies to bribe us to join their Church. Water bottles, light bulbs, snacks, etc. with pithy messages about their church ("Let us be the light in your life!"). Recently they left a little pot of pansies. By the time I noticed they were there, they looked dead, dead, dead. I took them in anyway, gave them some water and they perked right up, and are THRIVING, despite having me for a caretaker. I think the Church rigged those flowers to try to send me a message. I call it my Jesus plant.

Anyway, I'd like to get some nice silk plants, particularly since we may be selling our house soon. Where are some great places to look?

[DemWitch]

34. Silk...

real ones turn brown quickly for some reason