For the water softener question: water softeners basically exchange "hard" minerals such as calcium and magnesium for "soft" minerals like sodium. So lets say you have hard water that comes into your water softener; the softener has little beads called mixed ion exchange resin beads. These beads are charged with sodium ions, when the hard water mixes with the beads, the calcium and magnesium ions are more strongly attracted to the pores in the resin. So the calcium and magnesium go into the resin and the sodium comes out into the water. This is the same reason you have to buffer coco products because they come charged with sodium ion and will suck the calcium and magnesium out of the substrate and water. TLDR: water softeners exchange calcium and magnesium in your water with sodium. So watering with softened water is just adding a bunch of sodium into the substrate and to the plant which IMO is not good. If you have water softener bypass, then use the water from that to water your plants, you wont need to add any extra calmag if you do.
I always laugh when you say “it’s fine” in that exasperated tone 😄 And I’m the same when I concentrate on something. It’s hard to talk about something else at the same time 😅
When you are sooo focused on nuances of what you are doing, that is my cue to pay attention to what you are doing. It's MORE than ok to stop answering questions at those times. You are authentic.❤
I propagated Thanksgiving cacti directly in soil. I had a lot of wins, but I had some losses, too. I think I will try perlite next time. I do that for hoyas, so it makes sense. Regarding getting a 2nd kitty: when the time comes, you might want to consider a male. My vet said that two female cats tend to not get along even when they are spayed. We got lucky with two who loved each other. But when one died unexpectedly of heart disease, we got another female, and they don't get along very well. It isn't horrible, but they definitely aren't buddies.
I will say this, we have two cats one litter box. I’m not sure if it just works for ours because they were kittens and liter mates (brother and sister) when we got them. Right now, we are living with family and the box is in our room so I just find I have to scoop twice a day. It’s a little more work but it’s worth it to have them both. 48:53 I also used to struggle with monstera until I started giving it WAYYYY more light. Now it’s thriving.
It was my first time swapping and I was really anxious/nervous about people wanting my plants but most of them were swapped or given away. Next time I will have much more confidence to approach people! I had such a blast!!! I really appreciate the effort of making the long journey and making this happen, both you and Lisa! 🙌
Watering plants using water from water softener...had one in my old house and it didn't hurt my plants but salt deposits on pots and plant leaves were a thing.
Put those variegated Thanksgiving leaves in Perlite, and a Prop box. I have done so many that way, and they grow MUCH better than just in soil. Those single leaves may not make it, but the double leaves sure should. I just lay them on top of the Perlite with a bit of the stem just barely in the perlite, water your Perlite first. Then shut the lid, keep in a warmish place and just leave them. They will grow. Much better than in Soil. I would love to get one of the variegated ones, one day, but they are few and far between. Good Luck with them. I just wanted to suggest what I do that really works. From Alberta, Canada
🌊 For the water question, I personally use something similar to a Brita filter called Zero. My plants do really well using that filtered water. That is what I would recommend if you can get it where you live!
i would put your Thanksgiving cactus into moist perlite in a humidity box. I have been very successful propagating that way instead of straight into soil.
How strange my comment has vanished. Hopefully it doesn’t come back and make me look stupid. Anyway, I have my blue star fern in semi hydro and it bounced back after being in soil, I may have under watered in the soil, as it went crispy and just didn’t grow. I also added my albeit sparse asparagus fern in semi hydro and it is growing again, I feel like I need to add another with it though, to fill it out. I’m not good with soil. How is the variegated peace Lilly doing in the semi hydro? Mine are still doing well.
I’m with you, a lot of those anthuriums look alike to me, I only like the very unique ones personally, and not a big anthurium collector anyway I crave new tattoos about once a year lol I’ll always look at getting more doesn’t matter my age lol I wanna big thigh tatt for my 50th birthday lol the only thing holding me back from full coverage is the price, Is it just me or do you see every planty person own at least 1 cat? 🐈 I had a kitty named Cleo too
