I checked today and it turns out my mum actually has nine house plants in the hallways, instead of the three I thought she had. Much respect.

How is she keeping them all alive??

I so need to make an effort and get some seeds planted. The spinach I sowed a week or so back has geminated. I only planted about 8 seeds I think, and half of them have sprouted, so yay! I'm counting that as a success, now to see if I can manage to harvest anything from these. ><

@Alexander - You know, I'm going to ask her and report back here, because I bet she has some gardening secret that no one but her knows.

Today I'm grabbing some things. Hopefully a few seedlings.

I have four kinds of house plants right now: spider plants, wandering jews, "lucky bamboo," and a mystery variety of palm.

The spider plants are by far the easiest ones to take care of. I have two right now that have been growing steadily for 3 years now, despite neglect from me. My wandering jew plants are also pretty easy to take care of, but they haven't tolerated neglect as well as the spider plants. XD

I'm still trying to work out the best way to care for my lucky bamboos. I've read a lot of conflicting information about them—some people say they love to live in water, while other's say they don't need as much as people think. I have four stalks right now, one of which recently yellowed and died, and it didn't seem like there was anything I could do to help it.

The plant I'm really struggling with is my palm. Unfortunately, I threw away the label that said what type it was, so now I'm having a hard time identifying it so that I can get the right care instructions. (I'll post a picture of it later, so maybe someone who knows more about palms can help me figure it out.) Right now, it has several dead fronds, and many of the leaves have browning. My sister said that palms love to get plenty of water, so I've been trying to water it more. Today I read that they also don't like standing water, so I may need to repot it, since my pot doesn't drain. >_<

Anyway, I'm off to do some repotting, since my spider plants are fit to burst out of their pots.

I had a parlour palm for years, one of these.

Those put up with a lot of neglect, plants have to if they want to survive in my home. >< That suddenly died on me. I had misted it with warm water to wash the dust of it. At the time I'd assumed that was what killed it, looking back, I don't see why it would have, it was probably something up with the roots.

It's tough to know the method for a lot of plants, isn't it, because of the conflicting info everywhere. The healthiest any plants I had ever were were when I lived somewhere where I could put them all out in the back garden at the weekend, and give them a good soaking with one of those sprays that you pump up and it runs on its own. So they weren't dusty, and excess water drained away before I brought them back indoors.

I've just potted up a spider baby, the parent plant was horribly neglected >< I planted 3 of the babies in temporary places (a nursery? lol) and they all rooted, and now I'm feeling torn because I don't want 3 as I don't have the room for 3 plants that need that much width as they grow, but I'd feel massively guilty for throwing 2 of them in the bin. Hmm, maybe I can put a row of 3 on top of my shelves, so they can accumilate dust together.

That looks like exactly the palm plant I have, jelly. I showed mine to my sister after I repotted it, and she said it's leaves showed damage from both overwatering and too much sun. XD It was in a bad pot that didn't drain, so it was just sitting in stagnant water all the time, which it hated. (I would hate that too, if someone were watering me. ) Anyway, it seems to be surviving it's transplant, but I'm keeping a careful eye on it. In fact, it's looking a bit dry...

It turned out to be a really good thing that I replanted my spiders. Their roots had grown into these massive coils at the bottoms of the jars I'd put them in, and the old soil smelled rank and foul. I put them into matching blue pots and they seem to be doing much better now.

jelly, do you have any friends who like houseplants? I've found that spider plants make really great gifts, since they're so easy to pot and take care of.

I've decided I'm keeping my three If yours is a parlour palm, they don't like too much sun. Which a great trait for an indoor plant, I think! Mine wasn't at all bothered sitting in the dark a lot of the time xD Good like with keeping it going. :)

Yeah, I moved my palm to my desk, which is fairly dark. It's still looking a bit unhappy, but hopefully it will get better soon.

Anyone know of any house plants that stay fairly small? I have a few more empty plant pots yet to fill. Added a Ruffled fern to my mix of house plants. So with that I have altogether: 2 Christmas cactus, two african violets, 4 orchids, and a ruffled fern.

Some of these little plants look awesome

I was going to suggest African violets, then I saw you've got 2 already >< So not much help from me!