You may recall back on May 1 I shared a couple of photos with you of my houseplant, a philodendron called Prince of Orange. At that time I promised to share its growth progress with you; today I have a couple more pix.
Houseplants don’t usually shoot-up overnight like Jack and the Beanstalk so the progress is slow; I think I’ll notice considerably more growth than you will see in these pix but maybe not. It’s impossible for me to know how things look through your eyes so please tell me what you see.
I also have another houseplant which my sister-in-law gave me a few months ago. That one goes by several different names including Swiss Cheese Plant and Mexican Breadfruit but its most common name is Split-leaf philodendron. Its leaves grow similarly to the Prince of Orange philodendron – tightly coiled, slowly unfurling – but the Split-leaf has one strange feature the Prince of Orange does not …. hairy branches! Talk about an interesting houseplant, this one’s it!
This coming week I will repot the Split-leaf into a little bigger pot. When repotting a houseplant, you don’t want to move it into a new pot that’s too much larger than its existing one. That’s a difficult temptation to resist and a common mistake people make when repotting. We want fast results but a too-big pot will not achieve that. If there’s too much room for the roots in the pot, the plant could go into ‘shock’ and become dormant; sometimes a re-potted plant will die. When repotting houseplants, size definitely matters.
In truth, most houseplants are pretty hardy and can tolerate whatever comes their way. One of the things to remember is to never overwater your houseplants, even the ones that prefer a moist soil. Cacti and succulents react poorly to overwatering. A houseplant that is dried out – even shriveled up – will quickly perk up with a little water but an overwatered plant is very prone to root rot, which is difficult if not impossible to treat. My husband calls me the “plant rescuer” because I find nearly dead houseplants in supermarkets or CVS or even nurseries, take them home and give them some TLC. They bounce back fairly quickly and that really makes me happy.
OK, I’ve talked enough about these two plants; let’s do an unveiling, shall we? If you’d like to read the entire post from May 1 about my Prince of Orange (which also has a slew of funnies from the Bluebird of Bitterness, here’s the link:
But if you’d rather not, here are the two photos from May 1 of my Prince of Orange, followed by photos I took today:
Now today’s shots:
Can you see the folds starting to open, unfurling the leaves? That waxy cluster of red/orange “shoots” in the center of the plant will open into a new green leaf. It’s pretty cool to watch but we can’t hurry nature.
Now here are a couple of pix of my Split-leaf philodendron …. the one with the hairy branches. When I took this photo, I put the plant on my roll top desk in the corner of my sunroom for better light but I forgot to remove the table runner on top of the desk; that may be a distraction but I think you’ll be able to spot the hairy legs!
Check out those hairy legs!
It’s fascinating to me how these two philodendrons unfurl and almost “shed” their casing to allow for new leaf growth. As far as I know neither of these plants will bear flowers but anything can happen with some sun, water and TLC.
Thanks for visiting my sunroom and checking out my phabulous philodendrons! I will post again when something cool develops!
Now, go hug a houseplant!
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