Plantaloons

Last semester I took a class on indoor plants called "Interior Plants and Landscapes." The best part of this class was that almost every week we got to take home a plant or two which meant I accumulated a lot of plants...fast. By the end of the semester, I had accumulated the following plants (some in multiple pots)

- Heart leaf philodendron (regular green and Brazil varieties)
- Mother Fern
- Dieffenbachia
- English Ivy
- Golden and N-joy Pothos
- Variegated and non-variegated spider plants
- Some variety of begonia that I don't remember
- Burro's tail
- String of pearls (I chucked this one when it decided it didn't like humidity and got nasty)
- Amstel King ficus being trained into a bonsai shape
- Baby Madagascar dragon tree (living outside as it is breeding fungus gnats)
- Peace lily
- Arrowhead vine
- Gardenia (now living outside and covered in spider mites)
- Warneckii dracaena
- Lemon-lime dracaena

and the other couple plants I had before them, most notably my avocado tree named Kashyyyk (after the Wookie homeworld). I threw the other ones away because they rotted.

As it turns out I'm not exactly the green thumb I hoped to be. All my plants have fungus gnats so I've hung fly tape to catch them. It's funny what bringing home one infected plant can do. The infestation has decreased dramatically but it's still disgusting to think of maggots crawling around in the potting soil.

Now I'm worried about spider mites. My baby ficus was next to my infected gardenia so I washed the ficus in the sink. The ficus is one of my favorites so I hope it doesn't become infected. I should probably wash my gardenia as well, as the infection is pretty bad. However there is so little light in our apartment (half-basement, north-facing) that my plants are having a hard time and the gardenia is a high/intense light plant so I will probably just chuck it.

I think the plants make up for not having any animals in the apartment. I've had fish for the past five years but I'm not allowed to have them right now :( Can't wait until we can get a dog and a cat.