I currently keep the following plants:

• Monstera deliciosa (1)
• Philodendron sp. (1)
• Phoenix sp. (11)
• Citrus sp. (lemon, orange, mandarin) (4)
• Schlumbergera x buckleyi (1)
• Orchids (3)
• Strelitzia reginae (1)

I water them all once a week, each with the same amount of water. Except In December and January it’s every other week only to prevent from complete drying and not to disturb their dormancy. I fertilise them every year in the months from February to June. I add a lid amount of indoor plant fertiliser to 2 l bottles of water.

When needed, I replant them to larger pots in spring, depending on the activity of the plant (if the plant is growing very actively and/or blooming, I postpone the replanting for a month or even a year not to disturb their process).

I don’t overcomplicate and keep them all in the same type of soil (except for orchid, of course), a mixture of hummus and indoor plant soil mixture in ratio 1:1, or sometimes simply just hummus.

All the plants are kept in bright rooms, with both direct and indirect sunlight.

Monstera deliciosa

Has grown 5 more leaves since the last post, all fenestration. I haven’t replanted it yet and plan to this spring, 4 years since planting the seed.

Phoenix  sp. – date palm seedlings

They grow very slowly, adding 1 leaf a year, their age range is from 2 to 5 years. Their germination, whether in soil or starting in wet paper towels, was quite successful, about 90 %. All the seeds had and have the same conditions, I guess in this case the germination depended on the seeds’ fitness. I haven’t replanted any of them yet as they don’t seem to be overtaking their pots any time soon.

Citrus sp.  – citrus seedlings

There was a bit of chaos regarding these plants – I mixed the identification cards for all the citrus plants while repotting, so I don’t know which one is which (there are orange, lemon and mandarin plants), as these plants look the same, specially when young. They all belong in the same genus anyway, thus I just joined them under »citrus plants«. A lot of them have dried during their first year, as is a usual case for planting citruses from seeds. There are 5 plants currently growing and I planted some more. Age range is from 1 to 3 years. Hopefully these will last. One plant needed to be replanted last spring as it started growing quite vigorously, but the rest remain growing slowly.

Philodendron sp.

We got this plant as gift upon moving into the house. It was vegetatively propagated, so I don’t know its age. This cut off has been with us for 3 years now. When we got it, it had 10 leaves, it now has 36 leaves. It is growing very vigorously, with every new leaf, there’s another following right after, it’s hardly keeping up with itself. It will soon need to be divided – cut off at the top as it’s growing too tall for our ceiling. I will document the process. It bloomed every spring so far and once in autumn, making 2 or 3 blossoms every bloom. I tried hand pollinating it, but no success so far. Will continue to try.

Schlumbergera x buckleyi

Got this plant as gift form my mother as she is vegetatively propagating it. It grew quite dense since I first got it and bloomed every January as long as up to April.

Orchids

Got 3 of these plants at once for my birthday. They have been our roommates for 3 years. I did’t try replanting them as I have bad experience with that – all the orchids I replanted died months after replanting, even though I did it exactly as instructed by a professional. So this time I’m leaving them as they are and see how long they thrive. So far they seem to be happy. There doesn’t seem to be much root rot. They bloom twice a year, the flowers last for 3-6 months. They only take short breathers, but are blooming almost throughout the year. I added some special stick fertilisers my mom suggested. The difference was them blooming even longer.

Strelitzia reginae

Tried growing it from seeds brought from Madeira – twice, by the book, but no success. Maybe the seeds just weren’t viable. Then bought the plant last year, put it in a light spot as instructed, but the plant got some sun damage, so we moved it more into the shadow. It seems to be doing ok, successfully recovering from the damage and growing new leaves. It will probably need to be repotted next year.

Next update will follow in one year, unless there are any specific changes, in that case, sooner.

Do/did you grow any plants from seeds? Any tips?