the origins of the plants living in my apartment

earlier this week, (or maybe last week?) one of my labmates asked me where to get plants. i didn't have any particular recommendations, because all of the plants i live with have come from different places.

Dracaena marginata (dragon tree)

my oldest surviving houseplant! i bought it from ikea the same week i moved to the east coast. it hasn't grown very much since then, so i should probably think about giving it more attention/water/light/room to grow?

Monstera deliciosa (swiss cheese plant)

i bought it from a local plant shop after the staff recommended it as a good beginner plant (i had been having issues). i think they were right! monstera droop dramatically when they want water, and bounce back once you've given it to them. mine grew larger than i knew how to handle very quickly, so i cut it up and propagated all of the nodes in water. now i have five pots of monstera that are all larger than i know how to handle. i think they need some things to climb on.

Epipremnum aureum (golden pothos)

i bought this one from someone on facebook marketplace. it seemed like an incredible deal at the time. the plant was one long vine the length of my hallway, and it looked really healthy when i picked it up. then, when i tried to water it, the water would just... bounce off? the soil was bizarrely hydrophobic. i stuck the whole thing in a bowl of water for a few hours and it absorbed nothing! it was rock hard too. i tried to break it apart with my hands, but didn't get anywhere until i started stabbing it with chopsticks. finally it broke in half like a geode and i was able to get the roots out to repot them. but i was too late... even in better soil, it was dropping leaves every day. i cut it up and water propagated the few parts that still had leaves attached. i was sad at the time, but now i have a pot with three plants in it that are really thriving.

Heptapleurum arboricola (umbrella tree)

the greenhouse club on campus did a plant propagation event two years ago, and i took a cutting home with me. it's big now! this summer, it dropped the original branches from the cutting and the stem started getting woody. i'll have to move it from the table to the floor soon.

Oxalis triangularis (wood sorrel)

this was a gift from ben's former roommate and our dear friend. he had some growing in his apartment, and after we were like wow cool oxalis he dug up a corm to give us. it's lost all its leaves a few times, but they always come back :-) (yay corms)

Persea americana (avocado)

we have three of these, all grown from the pits of supermarket avocados. i feel like i'm always seeing life hack style videos where people are making complicated little toothpick apparatuses to dangle their avocado pits over cups of water, but i've never tried it. mine were simply put into an unzipped plastic baggie with a damp paper towel and stored in a dark cabinet. i checked on them once every few weeks, and once the root was two or three inches long, i put them in dirt. the oldest one is about three feet tall now!

Ginkgo biloba (ginkgo)

ben gets all the credit for these! he collected dropped fruits from a female tree on campus, then followed this guide from the ginkgo pages. the smell of the fruit doesn't really bother me when walking by the tree, but wow it smelled bad the night ben cleaned all the seeds. worth it though. now we have 7 very cute seedlings, plus more seeds still in the fridge.

Nicotiana benthamiana (benthi)

the latest addition! this week, a colleague from down the hall asked if anyone was interested in plants, because he had too many seedlings. even though he was trying reduce the number of plants in his care... i offered a gingko seedling in exchange, and we traded. :-)