Concerned About Cloning
Dear Ivy,
I’m learning about plants and love the Pothos plant. My question is this: I looked up your blog saw how to clone a Pothos so I did it. It’s not dying, but it’s not growing the roots yet out of the nodes and do I have to wait until Spring or Summer to do [...]
Wild Flowers and Wooly Caterpillars
I know all of you who have a love of gardening also love the wild and natural world. I went hiking recently in the Hocking Hills region of Southern Ohio, and I want to share some pictures of a little critter I met, and a beautiful example of a flower. It is important to know [...]
ZZ Emergency
Dear Ivy,
I had 2 very healthy ZZ plants (several branches over 2 feet long), that I left outside for a few weeks in the Sydney winter. They were in a dry spot but when I brought them in side, most branches died off, lost their leaves and even fell off the plant; one has [...]
Gardenia Bonsai
Dear Ivy,
I was given a Gardenia Bonsai as a gift. How do I care for it?
Dear Reader,
Excellent question! I had to figure this out for myself earlier this year! I was given one as a gift as well. It arrived in a box full of styrofoam packing peanuts. So far, it’s done pretty well. I [...]
Reader Mail
Dear Ivy,
When you dead-head a petunia, can you just pluck the dead flower or should you snip it a little lower? What about those little mini petunias, do you have to deadhead those too?
Thanks very much,
Evary
Dear Evary,
This is a great question! A good opportunity to explain to my readers the practice of “Dead [...]
Double Dracaenas
Dear Ivy,
I have a Dracaena Warneckii and it has two stems…can they be separated or do they need to grow together?
-Lisa
Dear Lisa,
You can separate the two stems, and you can even take cuttings of offshoots and propagate them. Dracaenas are a hardy plant that will adapt to many different home environments, and levels of care [...]
Reader Mail
Hi Ivy,
I am writing partly for information and partly to help other people. We are staying with some friends at the moment and this evening my 11 month old boy had a bad experience with Zanzibar Gem. He was playing with the plant and broke one of the branches off and started chewing on it. [...]
Drooping Hens
Dear Ivy,
What does it mean when the leaves on my hen droop?
-Ms. Dangle
Dear Dangle,
I believe you might be referring to Hens and Chicks, more formally known as Sempervivum Tectorum. I’m pretty sure sempervivum means always alive, which is apt for this plant. It’s one of the very rare plants where you can set it and [...]
A once in a lifetime experience!
I had an amazing opportunity to go see a rare corpse flower yesterday! The Botanists at the Ohio State University have planted a rare Amorphophallus Titanum from a seed. These plants can live to be an old age, and only bloom a few times. When they do, the flowering period only lasts a few days. [...]
Sprouts!
My little veggie operation is off to a smooth start! I have sprouts! I’ve been going downstairs and watering the seeds every day, and making sure the drainage is good. Most of the seeds are in little plastic containers with drainage holes on the bottoms, and the big tray itself has drainage holes in it [...]