Special interests and hobbies

Houseplant Collection Reset

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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

September 2025 Aquarium Diary

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I didn’t get much done this month besides keeping everyone alive and happy. But I have some ideas for arranging the plants and equipment.

I decided to cut back the jungle Vallisneria in the corner and put my heater there vertically. That way the sword plant won’t have as much competition and I can move some plants to behind the rotala.

I’m going to start looking at ordering some foreground plants online and maybe some more shrimp. I think the shrimp that survived the transition to my aquarium are all male.

Aquarium Diary: August 2025

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It’s now September and the aquarium is doing well! Steve the mystery snail had a rapid growth spurt, likely from the heat wave we’ve been experiencing. I haven’t seen Bob the bladder snail in a long time; I believe he has passed. Though Bob’s hundreds of children, the Bobettes, live on to carry his legacy. The shrimp are seemingly happy, mindlessly munching away on algae, veg, and bug bites. They have all successfully molted multiple times which is encouraging.

This month I did light maintenance. I didn’t add liquid plant fertilizer, root tabs, and kept the water changes to a minimum, to let the shrimps adjust in peace. Since my aquarium has a large amount of filtration (bacterial, mechanical, plants) I only do a small water change about once a month. I spot cleaned occasionally with a turkey baster covered in a net (so I don’t alien abduct the Bobettes). I also cleaned up some hair algae with my hand (it’s easiest to roll it into a roll to take it out) and scrubbed the glass with a magnetic scrubber.

I do want to start working on the aquascaping part of my tank. I gave the plants 2 big chops this month. Well, mostly I trimmed the Jungle Vallisneria. While I love these plants, the 5 foot leaves are a bit much for my 10 gallon setup. I’ll think I’ll just keep one around and sell the rest for now.

I think I’m getting the hang of using my camera (Canon Powershot G16), some of my photos are actually in focus!

If You Think Your Plant is Dead, Try Moving It!

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I’ve had this happen 3 times now; I thought my plant was dead, put it somewhere else, and voila! Now it’s thriving.

I’ve read countless forum posts where people banish their “dead” drama queen plant to the back porch and it comes back and thrives, seemingly just to spite them.

In my case, it has been with ferns. A maiden’s hair fern, rabbit’s foot fern, and a Pteris fern to be precise.

My main problems have been with light and watering. I have 2 places I can put plants in my house; a south and a west facing window. At the south window, depending on where you position the plant, it either gets blasted with light or near complete shade. The west has privacy glass that filters the light, but the light varies a lot depending on the time of year.

I started with the ferns on a shelf just below the south window, where they were behind and underneath some other plants. That was WAY too much light still. Plus, there is a heat vent right above there and they were drying out faster then I could keep up with.

I tried putting them in the full shade spot, but that wasn’t enough light.

So now they had dead or damaged leaves, and at one point I thought each of them might be dead.

Some people banish their “mostly dead” plants the back porch, I banish mine to my laundry room with the west window.

And they ALL came back! And are the happiest I’ve seen them. I honesty wasn’t sure what was going on with the Pteris fern, because it was getting covered in little black spots and the new growth looked awful. Turns out it was also too much light.

I’m definitely leaving them there for now. I’m curious to see if they will like it all year round there, as I think they will get a loss less light in the winter.

My rabbit’s foot fern and Pteris when I bought them, verses now on the right.

Should have moved them sooner, but I honestly forgot that window existed. I just banish my plants there because that’s where I keep all my gardening supplies.

Crocheting a Hand-Spun Yarn Blanket

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A couple years ago I learned how to spin wool into yarn. Since then, I’ve had all this bulky weight yarn I didn’t know what to do with.

I couldn’t use it for anything that sat against my bare skin because of my Autistic sensory sensitivities.

I bought some new yarn in fun colours recently. I started playing around with them and my hand spun to make granny squares. Once I figured it, out I started to crochet… and didn’t stop for 5 days straight.

I got into a hyperfocus flow where all I wanted to do was crochet.

I lost some skin on my tension holding finger, got a blister on my thumb, forgot to eat multiple times, and probably had several more important tasks to do. But I loved doing it and it felt good.

Below is 1 and 1/2 days of work.

After another day and 1/2 of work, I finished adding all the colourful borders and joined the squares all together.

I spent the next 2 days weaving in all the ends. So. many. ends.

I love it and it makes me happy.

(P.S. Sorry for any weirdly focused photos, I’m learning how to use a better camera than my crappy phone one. I don’t always realise until later the photos weren’t focused right!)

Planted Aquarium Diary: July 2025

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July 9

I’m learning to use a different camera, so bear with me as my photo quality… varies (I accidentally made the ISO too high, oops). I learn best by doing.

I finally got a lid. It doesn’t fit perfectly and there’s a large gap, but it does reduce evaporation a lot. I was getting pretty tired of always topping up the water level.

I trimmed some melting leaves on my amazon sword, and gave it a root tab.

July 19

The large val plants are blocking the light so I’m giving them a hard cut back.

I also gave it a small gravel vac. I cover it with a net to prevent sucking up the bladder snails.

July 29

I GOT SHRIMP!

I finally got shrimp! They’re the whole reason I got into planted tanks. I’ve been obsessed with them for the last 2 years.

I ordered 5 Bloody Mary Neocaridina shrimp from AquaFloraCanada and I’m so happy with them! They even sent extras! One didn’t make the trip and ended up being a travel snack for the others.

July 30

I found one dead this morning (RIP lil’ guy). The Bobette’s (Bob the Bladder’s babes) made short work of the corpse. I almost didn’t notice it. The remaining 5 seem very happy and healthy.

Besides spending a couple hours acclimatizing the shrimp and feeding, I haven’t touched the tank. I’m going to leave it be for a week to let the new lil guys settle in.

Making a Basket With Dandelions

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I found out recently you can use spent dandelion flower stems to make cordage. I’ve made baskets with pine needles using the coiling method before, so why not dandelions! It’s difficult to forage for natural materials where I live, but dandelions grow everywhere. At least until the city sprayed all the ones in the parks. . . but I still got a backyard full to work with.

I have this cordage I made last week. I’m wetting it with a spray bottle and damp towel to make it less brittle.

I trying some cotton embroidery floss from the dollar store. Which I later regretted. It was only 2 ply and it snapped multiple times. Because of this I couldn’t pull my thread as tightly as I like.

I tie a knot onto start of the cordage (where the twist starts making a loop). Then start wrapping the thread.

Once I’ve got enough, I start to coil it. I pierce through it with a needle (using pliers as needed) to start a base. Then start stitching around it.

3 episodes of The Simpsons later and I got a nice disk for a bottom. Then I start shaping the sides, making it steadily narrower.

A couple more hours and I got a little basket! I backstitched along the top to help keep it secure.

Now to make a lid, which every tiny whimsical basket needs. It’s a pain to make, but I included a little handle.

I triple knotted the ends, trimmed any stray bits and it’s done!

My Planted Aquarium (June 2025)

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June 9.

Here we are again on my quest for the most beautiful planted tank in all the lands! As you can see, I like to soak my air plants in my aquarium. This way they get chlorine free water along with some nutrients. Just don’t do this if you use anything with copper in your aquarium, as it will kill air plants.

I’m starting by trimming and removing melted leaves

I want to give the sword plant more space, so I’m removing any Vallisneria that is too close.

If I wasn’t so tired, I would try selling the plants I pull out and trim.

Now that it isn’t tangled up, the sword plant looks much better.

I tucked some of the Vallisneria behind the branch.

I stuck in some blanched cucumber, topped up the water, and added liquid fertiliser.

June 17.

With each week I’m happier and happier with how it looks! My mystery snail, Steve is about 1.5 years old now. Personally I think he’s adorable.

I’m removing some algae this week. I used to have trouble with hair algae, but this is a new one. It’s slower growing and feels very sticky. Unlike hair algae, it attaches to surfaces very well. I found the easiest way to get it off is to use my fingers and rub it into a ball.

I’m trimming this plant and propagating it. I also trimmed the Rotala to give it more light.

I removed a bit more of the Vallisneria, added 2 broken up root tabs, liquid fertilizer, and left it at that.

June 24.

I’m doing a quick parameter check with some strips. I’ve checked these against the API freshwater test kit and they do pick up the nitrate fairly well.

I checked to see if the pH was high enough for the snails.

I’m removing some pups and trimming some jungle Vallisneria leaves.

Removing more algae (mostly growing on my pre-filter sponge).

I was tired so I just finished by topping up the water and adding liquid fertilizer.