The BIC Plant and Gardening Thread

[sister13]

Hello BIC friends and fellow gardeners! Whether you have a container on your balcony, some indoor plants, a whole garden, or even if you just happen to visit a botanical garden or see a lovely space or plant in your neighborhood you want to share, this is the place! Please share pics, tips, plans and tricks about all things gardening!  

For many years I had a container balcony garden with mostly flowers and herbs (when travel allowed), and I am now embarking on my first backyard landscaping and gardening journey. 

I am often taking inspiration from the natural world around me and have recently had some spring inspiration for the Makeup Challenge of the Week and have loved chatting about gardening in our other threads, so I thought a new thread would be nice. 

It’s always so interesting to me to see plants and gardens from different regions and countries, so I hope you’ll join the conversation!  

PS: if you create a makeup look based on some plant or garden inspiration, please feel free to post your look or flat-lay here, too! 

Here are a few pics of my spring bulbs to start and I’ll share more soon (kindly ignore the weeds)! 

 

 

My old balcony (from the outside) - I’ll try to find an internal pic too:

[sister13]

Oh wow, that’s awesome and thrifty!! My front yard is a whole other story. The builder does everyone’s front yard so it’s pretty boring but not the highest priority since it’s done. But we’re having drainage and runoff issues that’s creating a mess, ugh. But at least I got this one  thing planted last fall to color it up a little.

Oh and I did some bulbs around our shade tree. The crocuses came up early and were very cute, only 2 hyacinths bloomed and thy were very stubby, then 5 of 6  pink  tulips were tall and lovely for a few days before the hail, pouring wind and rain destroyed them. 

Unfortunately our tree seems dead which is a pain because if they don’t get a new one planted soon, it might die too if it gets planted too late and I’m sad to have missed out on a year of growing! But it will also disrupt my bulbs from getting their nutrition for next year if they get dug up too soon, ugh. 😞 

 

 

[Saradestin]

Those tulips are so beautiful @sister13 !!! 🩷🩷🩷 I love crocus!! My aunt has saffron and collects the spice when the flower is ready to die. So cool! 

[sister13]

Thanks so much! These were mystic van eik tulips, very showy. I was trying to decide if I want to pack more together next year vs spread out like they are now. It’s nice both ways. Ooh, saffron crocus would be amazing! @Saradestin 

[jaaayp]

I LOVE THAT THERES A THREAD FOR EVERYTHING I LOVE!!

I don't have a garden (I wish, it'll be a very "take my money situation" and I probably couldn't afford makeup anymore) as I live in a townhome. However, I am working on an indoor jungle hehe. I have LOTS of pictures to share as my camera roll consists of my cat and plants but I'll spare everyone the excess 🤣

My indoor greenhouses:

 

 

[Saradestin]

Absolutely gorgeous @jaaayp !!! 💚💚💚💚💚  I love your indoor jungle!! I always said to everyone that, if I let myself go, I would have so many plants that I would need a machete to get in the house! 😅 I love your tropical paradise! Now you need some cute frogs although your kitty would take care of them in the blink of an eye! 
You can share as many pictures of your kitty and your indoor paradise jungle as you want. You won’t bore us! 

[jaaayp]

@Saradestin MACHETE!!! 🤣🤣🤣 that's really the dream LOL daaaw thank you. I'll upload them slowly hehe not to overwhelm and blast this page 🥰 thanks for encouraging!

[CookieGirl1]

What cool plants, @jaaayp!

[jaaayp]

@CookieGirl1 thank you 🥰

[sister13]

Oh wow! Lovely!  thanks for joining us here!  I am slightly limited in my houseplants because my cat tries to eat them sometimes. I have just killed a mandevilla that I thought was making a comeback and two other really pretty leafy plants from Costco. But my fiddle leaf fig, my monstera and another unidentified spiky plant are mostly thriving! @jaaayp 

[jaaayp]

@sister13 thank you for letting me jooooin! Ah, I totally get it. I have a little nibbler myself and she just loves to chew on everything when I'm not looking! I definitely have plants that I've buried... we just keep trying! I would love to see your fiddle and monstera 🥰 heres my little chomper, Bandita, and my monstera, Marvin 🤣

She likes to check if I'm looking or not....

 

 

 

[sister13]

oh, and I’ll snap some pics tomorrow of my indoor plants. Mine might not actually be a monstera because it doesn’t have those split leaves, they are solid leaves. My husband calls it a taro, but maybe it’s an elephant ear? @jaaayp I really need to repot them all, poor things. 

[sister13]

Oh my goodness, Bandita is adorable, if mischievous. Our kitty mostly chews on the two small palms, then immediately throws them up, lol, it’s so annoying! Your plants look great! And I agree with @Saradestin , you are welcome to post as many pics as often as you like! @jaaayp 

[jaaayp]

@sister13 totally get it. Bandit does the same. Can't count how many times I had to carpet clean for her chewing plants and throwing up. I love elephant ear! I don't have any yet but planning on getting some this year 😊

[Saradestin]

Your plants look spectacular @jaaayp!!! ❤️ And Bandita is the cutest!! 😻😻😻

[jaaayp]

Hehe, thank you @Saradestin 🤣

[JoSometimes]

I love that indoor greenhouse set up you have @jaaayp! Is it an actual green house or did you repurpose a cabinet?

[jaaayp]

@JoSometimes thank you 🥰💖 These are repurposed ikea cabinets. Weatherproofed, air-circulated, and humidity controlled. It's definitely work but it keeps them safe from my plant chomper, Bandita �

[JoSometimes]

Impressive @jaaayp! Do you have a behind the scenes look at all the environmental controls? I’d love to see how you managed all that. 

And I love your cat’s name. Bandita is super cute. 

[jaaayp]

@JoSometimes @ behind the scenes? 🤔🤔 like the wires and cables? LOL

[JoSometimes]

@jaaayp Lights, fans, weatherproofing, whatever you did to make it plant-friendly. I’ve been thinking of an indoor green house for a while and I’d love to see how you turned that cabinet into one. Sorry, I sometimes nerd out over technical things like that. 🤓

[Saradestin]

We recently moved out of a rental apartment and purchased a house with a little garden. The garden was in deep need of everything: trimming, mowing, cleaning, planting, fertilizing…. It will be a several months’ work (and in some cases years) to bring it to where I want to, but that is part of the fun 😁.

As some of you know, all the move and cleaning and rough gardening, ruined my nails, but it was worth it. I did so much!
Here are a few pictures of some of the work done (it is ugly, but it is part of the process):

The inspection highlighted that we needed to avoid any grass/weeds/plants growing under the stucco, so that was one of the first things I had to do.

The grass had grown inside the stucco to an incredible length, taller than me! 😵 And there were long roots from who knows what also all over.

 

 

But I was able to clean all the house perimeter (this is only one part). It took me several days.

I want to plant flowers there, but that when I find time 😁

As you can see, the ground is pure sand. I need to add good garden soil to mix with it so plants can grow. 
I also took out several trees that I didn’t like and with branches too close to the roof (also highlighted by the inspection) The worst was to take the roots out 🥵🥵🥵🥵

Before

After

I planted a Rhododendron (that little green thing that you can see first) because it was on sale and this will be my “acid lovers” garden. This one is supposed to be heat resistant. We will see, because I have not seen rhododendrons here…

I want to add camelias, azaleas, gardenias, hydrangeas and nothing else because I would run out of space 😅

And for today I have bored you enough. I have done much more than this but it would be too boring/ugly to share.
Tomorrow more gardening! 😁