I’ve been pretty busy, or at least my recovering-from-autistic-burnout brain thinks I have.

Which has meant a slump of low motivation, passion, and energy. Unfortunately that means my houseplant collection has been rather neglected. I kept saying “I’ll do it tomorrow”; tomorrow turned into a month.

I tend to get stuck, thinking I have to do everything at once which leaves me with a sore back and an overwhelming mess. (An example of my autistic black and white thinking perhaps?)

This time, I’m going to take it slow and try not to create a mess tornado in my bedroom and bathroom.

Day 1

First, everything needs to be watered. I also need to deal with the spider mites and thrips that have made themselves at home on my stressed plants.

I started by taking 3 plants at a time to the bathroom, drowning them in the sink, then spraying them with diluted rubbing alcohol in the shower. I left them there for about 30 minutes while I did other tasks or took a break. I picked one side of my window and slowly worked my way over.

Today I threw out 2 plants (I had healthier duplicates) and watered and sprayed 12 others.

Day 2

Now that I’m thinking of it, I should be using a box to carry the plants to the bathroom in groups; less work.

I watered and sprayed 24 plants today (I have more in another room)

I also took down my hanging plants, while they look amazing it’s harder to take care of them up there.

Day 3

After watering and spraying my last 3 plants (for a total of 39), I started pruning.

I focused on removing damaged leaves to help remove thrip larvae.

The tradescantia plants needed a hard prune to keep them bushy.

I pruned 25 plants.

Day 4

I bought some fertilizer, epiphyte fertilizer, yellow sticky fly traps, and a new air plant to replace one that died (Tillandsia capittata peach)

Day 5

I’ve never fertilized my air plants beyond soaking them in my aquarium. I grabbed an empty 4 liter bottle, labeled it, and mixed the fertilizer in it. I soaked the air plants and put the leftovers in my watering can for later.

I was trying to make an air plant wreath, but I kept forgetting it existed. So now I’m keeping them in a tray in my window.

Day 6

Lastly I have some cuttings to pot up. Most are being put back into the mother plant pots, but a couple are for making new plants. I also topped up a couple pots low on soil. I used a crochet hook to poke the cuttings in.

My plant window now looks really nice and satisfying and I’m getting that itch to buy more plant things again…

Notes to self:

1. Use a container, box, or tray to move plants in groups
2. You don’t have to do everything at once!
3. You can never have enough plants