Houseplants and cut flowers

I certainly found your blog interesting, PA. Nearer to Christmas will you post some easy to construct (!) Christmas arrangements, please? I can follow instructions!

That was a kind thought of your new neighbours! Ido like your dragon tree - very attractive.

It's nice to have plants in the house be they cut flowers or potted plants. Your neighbour was very kind giving you the flowers. It shows she appreciated you putting up with the noise. That's nice :)
I have many house plants, one of which is a Dragon one like yours. It had got so tall that this summer I cut it into three and potted them up. They look all right and I have hopes they'll grow into nice plants.
Then I'll have to find room for them ! :)

That's a very nice bouquet - looks like ornamental cabbage in there as well.

Hywel, you sound as bad as me - having enough plants in the sitting room that it had begun to resemble a jungle, I got ruthless with a lot of them, so things got split, repotted, cut down and re rooted and so on. Trouble is, I can't bear to throw away half a root ball, so now I've got two peace lilies, two mother in law's tongue, two spider plants, and the tops of the Schefflera, which had reached nearly 6 feet, are now rooting nicely in a bottle in the kitchen. And I've already got another Schefflera with variegated leaves, two miniature fig plants plus Ficus benjamina, plus a Devil's Ivy and a palm... In my attempt to lessen the jungle feel, I seem to have ended up with even more pots... Once they all grow properly again, I might need a machete to get through the door, I can't seem to help myself!

I know the feeling Bamboo :D

hehehehehehe Bamboo! That is hilarious, and I do know exactly what you mean. My indoor jungle is mostly aloe veras - my mum gave me one a few years ago and it's multiplied and some of them are like something from The Little Shop of Horrors!

I'm intending to take some of them to my ladies' group bring and buy once I get them into pots I can afford to lose. But if they don't sell I have to bring them back home. But if I leave them unpriced then people can just take them for any donation they care to so even a penny :D And the church gets all the funds from it so it's a nice way to give when your budget is low like mine.

Eirlys, do you mean instructions for flower arrangements? Mine are just in vases as I don't have things like the spiky bases or the oasis that florists use. But here is a good tip - don't be a plonker! (out of the wrapper and into the vase) Be bold with the scissors and cut them to different lengths, then put them in. It makes a big difference.

I bet if you look around online you can find some good instructions, or you could get a book from the library. But I would suggest NOW is the time as they will all be lent out near to Christmas.

Lovely bouquet and very thoughtful of your neighbour, I do like your description of the dragon plant, made me smile as I have many plants that are thingy's, I love my houseplants, however I'm curtailed and confined to the kitchen windowledges, hallway and landing window and the dining room, every spare space as long as its not the table is put up with, lol, none in the sitting room as they wouldn't stand a chance with two dogs and a cat..Oh I just remembered, I do have a plant in here, poor little thing, its an airplant and lives on the top shelf in one of the alcoves, had it for years and goodness knows how it survives as I tend to forget its there, have to admit that particular shelf does not get cleared and dusted properly when I'm doing the others as its up so high, I need a ladder, I tend to balance on my little handy steps and stretch with my long handled feather cobwebbing thingy, very carefully so as to not knock my treasures down, you get the idea..

That's the trouble with treasures, and plants come to that - they all need dusting... when I finally tackled my plants a few weeks ago, I was practically enveloped in a dust cloud, I'd not touched 'em for months and months

This site is so comforting - its good not to be the only one who has dusty bits...

I can't see the dust without the right pair of specs on anyway... I suppose, after lens replacement surgery, I probably will be able to see it though, so no more excuses!