Bought some new plants this morning.

Almost a year ago now I came across a viveros in the centre of town and got the idea of putting plants on the balconies, since there are six of them and since I can’t have many indoor plants because of Azar who apparently has a ‘green tooth’. The whole saga about that is over here on the viveros post, including when my landlord later on told me I couldn’t have plants on my balconies because the water will rust them and make them dangerous. 🙄

Anyhoodle, I solved that problem by putting some plastic trays on the balcony floors directly below the plants (which are hanging from metal rings). But then the gorgeous gitanillas got eaten by butterfly larvae and over this past winter our lovely ferns died – from neglect it must be admitted. I blame Nog. 😉

So this morning I went out in search of something ‘ferny’ as those three balconies face north and found some very nice asparagus ferns at a little plant stall not far from home. And as they happened to have exactly six of them I decided it was meant to be. I had been looking at some nice boston ferns but there were only two of them and the guy told me that the asparagus ones were much hardier. And this is true as I’ve had one in the bathroom for several years that seems to be thriving. And so the new ferns have been repotted and are out there now looking very happy, but I’ll give them a few days to settle in and spread out a bit before I take a photo of them.

Meanwhile, what to do about the sunny side of the apartment? I told the guy at the plant stall how all my gitanillas died last year and he said that was because for the past three years there has been a plague of a certain butterfly that lays its eggs on the plants and then the larvae end up eating them from the inside out. And indeed I saw the same butterflies on the few gitanillas they had there (I wonder why they keep selling them?). The guy recommended a plant with very pretty star-shaped flowers – can’t remember the name – so that’s an option to consider. He says they usually flower twice a year and do well in direct sunlight, but to be honest the plant itself looks rather uninteresting. So when it’s not in flower it won’t be all that attractive.

Back when my landlord was being totally unreasonable, and before I came up with the plastic tray solution, I’d asked my h2g2 friend Sho if she could make me some colourful painted wooden flowers (something she is very good at) and she came up with a tulip prototype for me. But now I’m not sure if I’d prefer real flowering plants or if I should commission Sho to make some for me. The wooden ones have the advantage of being unique and very cute and something I’ll always enjoy looking at from the living room.

I think I should probably flip a coin. 🙂