shock – Understanding Plants

I can’t put these under failures per se, because many of them appear to thrive for a while, until they don’t. In some instances, certain changes, and other circumstances may take affect, leading to the plants simply not living.

There are a variety of plants that I have chosen to have in my home. I look at a few plants, that eventually just don’t make it. There may be reasons, that put them in the category of fickle, while other simply just don’t survive for very long. Now, you could put this under fickle plants, because there are some that are quite fickle with their environment, even when they eventually reach the point of flowering.

However, when it comes to fickle plants, most of us have been there. No matter how we care for them, try to keep them alive, some simply either can’t or won’t stay alive.

In many instances, it’s out of our control. However, if we can control the circumstances around us, it will take a lot of effort for little positive outcomes. In the end, the plant will still end up perishing. That happens, and it can happen with certain plants. Your environment often results in some plants either struggling and then dying, or being just fine, and can live for quite some time. For the ones that had the former result, I will discuss here.

NOTE: This was my experience with these plants, and it may not be the same for other people.

Much of the environments can lead to good results as well as bad results. An example of this can lead to a plant thriving at first, but later on, you start to not see something happen, such as overall growth. If you have a set of plants that grow, but there’s one that doesn’t, you have to figure out why.

One for me was an air plant. For some it’s quite easy to maintain, but it’s not always the case, especially if you live in an area, or an apartment for example, that’s extremely dry. The air is so dry, that it can give certain people nosebleeds. That needs to be fixed with either a humidifier, and evaporative air cooler, or something that can lead to the air being of normal/moderate humidity, or slightly humid for the plants.

I’ve mentioned the notion of this air plant that I had, was fickle, and that requires explanation. The air plant that I bought is no different than any other, but I was given some advice, in regards to humidity making them grow quite fast, or at best showing to be greener and happier when it’s in a humid area. Every so often, air plants will need to be dried out, naturally. I made that mistake, in doing this a bit too late; so this may have been a mistake on my end. However, what I did realize when I didn’t see it grow, some cases, it’s recommended to pull off some of the outer leaves. When I did this, I saw some browning of where it should be rooted. By the way, air plants don’t have roots. Those leaves were coming off a bit too quickly, and this continued until there wasn’t anything left.

To a degree, it may not have been a fickle plant, but for me it was. I had it in, “the tank”, usually hidden under the fast growing plants around it. However, when I raised it to be closer to the midst of the environment, atop of some of the parlor plants, to get more light, this resulted in drying it out quite fast, becoming its default grey color, once again. It was in a very high humidity environment, where, “the tank” has an average humidity around 85%. It may have become temperamental because of being in that environment, but as stated earlier, it may have had a bit of rotting in the bottom of the plant, behind the outer layer of leaves. This may have been the sign that I could not see, that the plant may have been dying, and I couldn’t see that, until it was too late.

I’ve had my issues with succulents, and I had an issue with one type, where I did things right, and even tried to not water them too much. Keeping them in a dry air environment wasn’t an issue, but apparently it was, because they eventually died. Leaving an overwatered succulent to dry out, should be easy, but in some instances, it wasn’t the case for me. I didn’t have the succulents, and yes, I had maybe two or three, and all in open air environments, and no matter what I did, all of them died. I watered when needed, less frequently than the other plants. Just like with cacti, they can’t be watered too often; they need to be watered maybe ~~weekly~~, bi-weekly or monthly. If the environment is dry, then maybe bi-weekly just to counter the dryness; which is better for most plants that prefer moderate to higher humidity.

For me, succulents don’t work. I can deal with cacti, but as long as I get the ones that don’t have fake flowers hot glued on them, it will be worthwhile, but for me, succulents are a no-go at this time. I can’t include those type of cacti, because they were manipulated, and damaged, and it’s not an issue of them being fickle, in my opinion.

When it comes to fickle plants, I can say with clear certainty, lavender plants are in this category, because no matter what I did, repotting, giving them good lighting and water, It still resulted in both plants dying. I bought two, and both of them dried up significantly. The problem here, was no matter what I did, nothing would work.

Lavender plants are no good in tropical environments, at least the ones I bought didn’t like high humidity. I tried propagating them, with a humidity dome and in soil, and it resulted in the plant developing mold, instead of rooting. I tried this without the dome, and just in water, and that didn’t work either. Many have tried these methods, and for them, they worked. For me, nothing worked. It was more stressful just trying to maintain them, and to keep them alive. After a while, I just gave up, because it wasn’t the water, and it wasn’t the lighting, and it couldn’t have been shock either. This plant simply didn’t want to be in the environment it was in.

I can also add the string of pearls, and although it is a good plant to have, where I live, it’s very fickle, and only lasted maybe a few months at best, before it finally shriveled up and died. It’s one of those semi-succulent types of plants, where they don’t really care for humidity, but require water and sunlight regularly. (Some say otherwise, but either way, I got the results that came with it.) Again, the issue may also have been the environment, because of its excessive dryness in the air around it. You can’t over water them, and you can’t keep them in bright sunlight either. You also can’t under water them, or keep them too dimly lit. Other people may have the opposite experience, and some of that maybe because of where they’ve chosen to keep these plants, but for me, it just didn’t work out, and now that plant is a distant memory. Yes, I did try propagating them, several times, but to no avail. Oh well.

I can say that I took a chance and bought a random set of plants from a plant vendor at Union Square, where they often have the Farmer’s Market. One of them I looked at was a plant that was already flowering, and it kept this up for a while. This was called a Kawaii Soiree, or Kawaii Catharanthus, and it’s also called, “white peppermint”. I can’t say much about this. Right now it’s pretty much gone, just like the lavender. Only difference, it wasn’t truly that fickle, because it spent the entire summer just flowering, and it was only once the weather got a bit colder, it chose to change, and not for the better. It gave me no trouble, until maybe late September, and after that, it was nothing I could do. I want to say that it went dormant, but I’m sure that’s not what happened.

For some plants, you can be doing everything right, including adjusting the humidity in your home, and it will still not work for some plants for whatever reason. I will admit, there may have been things and assumptions on my end, this is especially the case with the air plant. For the others, they simply didn’t want to be there, or they simply couldn’t adjust. You know it looks bad, when you have them in different settings, and no matter what you do, they both end up dying anyway. That proves why some plants simply aren’t compatible with some areas, no matter what you do to accommodate them.

Could some of them die, because of an infestation that you cannot see? It’s been said to be the case for a few plant enthusiasts. I’ll have to look into this personally.

I could easily go through this one, because there are so many. I put this here, not because of what I did wrong, but because the plants simply didn’t want to adapt, or because other catalysts left them unable to survive. Many unusual instances have occurred, where I found myself dealing with dying and eventually dead plants. Here are a few instances of these failures.

One failure was with a small air plant that I had, and it involved something I tried, with my tank setup. The humidity was perfect. It became green for some time, and was this way for at least a month or more. When it’s green, it’s getting what it needs, because they start off grey (or grey-ish) showing how dry, and in need of water and open air.

I tried one of the various methods of hydrating my plant, but I really didn’t need to. I’ll say this though, I noticed that the middle leaf on the plant was still brown, more like a rust color. That may have been an indication of the water used. This was the case before trying one of the other methods. After some time, I decided to let it dry out in open air, which was something I should have done more often. This is where things went downhill. I figured at the time, there was a loose leaf, and I pulled it off, only to notice some dark browning at the base. This was a sign of rotting. It didn’t end there. It happened with another leaf. Then another, and another, and another, until there was nothing left.

Now, considering how very dry my apartment is on a normal daily basis, it made sense this would happen. So, it may be a long time, before I decide to bring one of those back in again. Now, part of this result I attribute to keeping it in a humid environment for far too long. This may have resulted in the rotting of this, but whatever. Mistakes happen.

Another failure I can’t really attribute this to anything that I did wrong – not yet anyway. I had a couple of lavender plants, and for a while, they did okay. One was by the window sill with bright light, and the other was by another window, with low light. Neither survived after a month or two. Tried propagating them prior to their demise, and that backfired as well. You know it’s not working when you see the fuzzy mold envelope the entire stem; that’s not a good sign.

Were there others? Yes.

I’ve had several venus fly traps, and not all of them lasted very long. I had several and much of the failures came around the time I purchased them. What do I mean? I purchased and received them in January. Most plants, especially carnivorous plants, have a tendency to go dormant, where it appears to almost die, but it’s really not. Once it’s in a much warmer setting, dormancy may not occur.

Once I received my fly traps, and a sundew, I had so many settings. One by a window, with low daylight, and some in the tank setting, where they had lots of humidity and grow lights; this was my red dragon, typical VFT, and the sundew. All had their instances of growing well for some time, but after some time, they just didn’t. The one by the window, was a pinnacle, and it began to shoot up a flower stalk within a few weeks, just as the red dragon. The typical, didn’t really fair that well to push a flower stalk.

Trying to get these to grow further, for some reason was difficult, even in their settings where they grew quite well. The pinnacle, didn’t last, but I cut the flower stalk before things got worse. I may have waited too long to do so, because after that, it was gone within a couple of weeks. The red dragon faired a bit better, but I tried bringing it out sometime after I cut the flower stalk. Believe it or not, it lasted much longer than all of the others. The typical VFT somehow, just didn’t take, and eventually just died. The sundew, this particular one, was the most difficult of the rest, because I had to move it to another smaller terrarium setting where it could be dormant. It didn’t recover, and well, it was pretty much over with.
Long story short, for those in particular, it’s better to buy them in the spring and summer months, but there was one set of sundews that let me know it wouldn’t be easy. I tried again with this particular breed, and it started producing flower stalks right away. It stayed that way through the majority of its overall lifespan. This one I kept in a terrarium to keep the humidity up for it to grow, so that helped, but it also backfired, when I opened the terrarium to give it some air. This is where it began to dry up. I made one mistake prior to repotting them, which was to not separate them, so that aided in the cluster to not grow as well, after the flower stalks were cut.

After some time, that set of sundews were reduced to maybe one. For a cluster of sundews, generally you can separate maybe between eight or ten separate sundews. I realized this for the next time I went to get some more. That’s for another story, not in this section at this time. Anyway, that sundew reduced to one, eventually shriveled up, even after separating, and just didn’t recover. It had enough water, and sunlight, but it just didn’t want to survive.
A few have came and gone, and another I tried to grow, was the string of pearls. It’s a succulent type of plant, and it’s often best to hang them to grow long. For me, it did last for a little over two months. For a while, I had it under low light setting, but bright enough so that it got enough light from the window, but also from a nearby plant light (not a grow light). This was just fine, for a while.

Eventually, I tried another setting, which was my mistake. I put it to hang by the bathroom window, where it got humidity from the shower. If I did this from the beginning, I may have had different and better results. It wasn’t working so I brought it back to its original setting. It was still a bit stagnant, and eventually I saw it becoming a bit fuzzy, with the mold, clearly a bad sign.

A few weeks later, it was gone. All of the pearls dried up. When I saw this, it was time to call it a day.

I have a couple of cacti and I had my issues with at least one of them. Now, for the one that I was successful with, I won’t discuss here. What I will discuss, is the one that I failed with. I tried keeping this in a setting with sand and soil. I made separate layers, and hoped that the sand would be more suitable for it. It wasn’t. I saw the cactus browning, not just the needles, but the cactus with the green flesh turning brown. I think it’s safe to say, it was over for this one.

I had another prior to this, where I never repotted it, and that’s why it didn’t last.
Another, involving more venus fly traps. This involved me putting them in terrariums, but this time, the issue was more about acclimating them back to regular temperatures. Acclimation is a fairly slow process, and for this one, it wasn’t working because it was a bit too fast. Long story short, it died due to shock.

A different one died from shock, after I moved it from the tank setup, and although it was from that to a terrarium, it still didn’t take, and eventually stopped growing. I didn’t really notice until I didn’t see the traps forming, and I went to take a closer look, only to see clear rotting at the base. There goes that.

With the many failures here, many lessons were learned. One thing to understand, is that carnivorous plants aren’t that easy to grow, for long periods. If you keep them in constant conditions, you could have them for several years. I’ve yet to have that result, but I’m working on it. As for the plants that didn’t work out, just know that some plants simply don’t like where they are growing. Once you find out why they won’t work out, you can then decide whether or not you should pursue replacing them, and doing so, with different ways or placement for growth.

Hopefully, there won’t be that many more stories of failures, but only time will tell.

Tag: shock

Other Types.

My Failures With Plant Care.