Sunday, October 18, 2015

It's Alive!

I've been busy with juggling work, chores, and trying to be a good wife to my funny husband (I'll write something about him soon), and getting a life.

However, when I'm lucky and I finish my chores earlier than usual, I have the occasional down time. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I watch movies. ‎But what I consider the most fulfilling is gardening. 

My mom had a lot of plants. She could grow almost anything and I am always amazed at how her plants would thrive under her care. You would think that I would inherit my mother's green thumb and love for plants. Green thumb, no. Love for plants, sure. I like looking at plants. I could identify more of them than other people could. But I just started taking care of plants very recently.

I was so sad when my puppy died. I experienced an overwhelming grief that I've never had before. I didn't know what to do. I realized that I had to take care of a living thing to keep me from getting depressed. But I'm not yet ready to have another pet. So the next best thing is taking care of our plants.

I already had orchids, water plants, and air plants, which my mom gave me when I went away to live in another city with my husband. They were relatively easy to take care of. 

When I was confident enough to add more to our little garden, we bought small Bromeliads, and then succulents and cacti. ‎So far most of them are still alive. I managed to kill one of our cacti- I over watered it.

I have also propagated some of our succulents. I lost some of the baby succulents along the way.  I also managed to grow a ginger plant just by sticking drying ginger in some soil. And now I'm trying to propagate basil by putting cuttings in water. And I am so very proud to say that I have managed to make five cuttings grow roots!

I read an article about it in the internet and thought I should give it a try.  And 15 days after, my "experiment" is going well. The article helped me a lot. Their instructions are very easy to follow even for a gardening newbie like me and they can have a lot of gardening tips.

Next challenge is to make them live when I plant it in soil!
Do you have a garden? What plants do you have? Do you have gardening tips to share?