A plant with very dark green and slightly speckled leaves
Today at @growcoolplants.bsky.social, I finally brought up some pieces of my mom’s hoya fungii which had dark green and FUZZY leaves!
Also, two things of note: we are authorized to ship plants now and also we have a LOT of hoya. So if you are looking for a specific variety, HMU.
Two long tables full of people in the alley of downtown businesses
Two tables of people painting pottery
A table with a green cloth covering and boxes of plants
Great event with the Octagon Center for the Arts tonight - painting upcycled pottery, and we brought $5 plants and stickers + free cuttings to share. Amazing turnout!! We love creating community, one plant at a time.
Shout out to Octagon staff and volunteers for (literally) doing the heavy lifting
A vining plant with small round green leaves with splashes of gray white
Mathilde splash with like four peduncles
A hand holding a vine with round deep purple leaves with green veins
Repotted and chopped a few. Have been waiting to chop this hoya latifolia sarawak that puts out deep purple new leaves that inflate wildly as they mature. Excited to finally propagate it!
A group of potted plants on a wooden pallet with a spray of water coming down
A group of potted plants on a pallet
Hoya mother plant maintenance day. Everyone got a hose down, spray with insecticidal soap and spray with horticultural sulfur. I haven’t used sulfur until this spring but another grower swears by it. #houseplants
A small green shield shaped leaf on a pink stem with small white roots
Bonus: this this mystery alocasia corm was in a propagation box for like 6 months and finally rooted and sprouted a leaf! Maybe is pink dragon?
A plant with green glossy leaves and a hand holding a cluster of small, round white and yellow flowers
A Venus fly trap with open “mouths” and a straight pinkish stem rising from the center and there are three small orbs on top of the stem and these are buds
A plant with bright green leaves and a new leaf that is copper colored with whiteish green veins
A green-brown stem with the tiniest brown-red leaf at the tip of the stem
Tuesday evening scenes from the basement:
1. Hoya sunrise in bloom
2. Venus flytrap about to bloom
3. Anthurium crystal hope
4. Hoya Russell, which lost its leaf from the propagation cutting, but I didn’t throw it away and it’s pushing a new leaf!
A small tabby cat with yellow green eyes rubbing up on my ankles
A small tabby cat with white “boots” walking past a tray of leafy plants
Is there anything better than a greenhouse kitty? Met Charlie (Creeping Charlie) and Phil (Philodendron) today 😻 brothers, five months old, so friendly.
Last week we shared a video of a false vivipary on a Dente Venus Flytrap and, uh, things have progressed...
A woman standing in front of shelves with lights full of plants and clear totes
Shelfie
I made the executive decision to retire the little green tents because we are using clear totes for “greenhouses” instead and they are not space efficient. I saved one for plants that I’m repotting/refreshing for the sale. We will probably sell the other tents at the sale! bsky.app/profile/grow...
A stack of wire shelves waiting to be assembled, sitting next to other wire shelves
It’s always shelf-o-clock in the basement
A woman on the right side of the photo, smiling as she looks at several lighted shelves full of plants
Niche internet celebrity @chemjobber.bsky.social and his eldest child passed through Ames the other day on their Midwest college campus road trip. CJ took this pic of me in the @growcoolplants.bsky.social basement and it’s 💯 how I feel every time I’m in the plant basement 🪴
A clump of purple pitcher plants with red leaves surrounding a single bell-shaped flower. The plant is on green moss next to a body of water.
I will never not think it's cool that the provincial flower of Newfoundland is the carnivorous purple pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea.
We will also have a coffee truck and offer things like pot drainage hole drilling, free repotting for small plants, low cost assistance for larger plants, and it’s the first Main St Farmers Market of the spring! We hope you will join us 💕🪴
If you live in Central Iowa, we are accepting plants, pottery & other stuff for this sale. We ask that your plants be pest-free, although I’m happy to repot/refresh prior to the sale.
100% of sale proceeds will be donated to OneIowa and Food at First.
An image that says parking lot plant sale and prop swap, may 3rd 10-4, may 4th 12-? With 50% off. At Back Alley 501 Main Street, Ames. 100% of plant sale proceeds to benefit One Iowa and Food @ First
Oh hello. Still here, not posting, only so much bandwidth.
Bad: a friend and customer is moving back to Canada
Good(?): she has donated her entire plant collection to the shop with the request that we sell it and donate the proceeds.
We are also donating plants & looking for more donations!
Several small potted plants in a clear tote sitting on a bed of perlite. The leaves are heart shaped and have white veins. The new leaves are dark red-purple
She did it again and spent all day in the shop basement. Anyways here are some #anthurium we grew from seedlings or germinated seeds, very proud. 🥹 #houseplants
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I know some businesses have gone cashless so this isn’t always the case. But it never hurts to ask! And we try to keep these things updated online as well.
While we support the economic blackout on Friday, we also gotta make rent. If you are supporting small biz this weekend (or any time) - at least for us, cash is always appreciated as we don’t pay a swipe fee.
Not too terrible! We certainly lose a few here and there but we always try our best to rehab stock that has suffered a bit.
We do a lot better than big box stores where half the plants end up dead or dying within a few weeks of delivery.
Approx. 5 bullets on what I did this past week:
-watered plants
-watered plants
-repotted plants
-watered plants
-ping farm 2.0
A clear plastic tub divided by small strips of plastic into sections. Each section has a collection of small rosettes and leaf portions plus a tag identifying the variety
Ping Farm 2.0 #pinguicula #carnivorousplants
Manifesting
Two plants with very large heart-shaped, deeply veined leaves. One leaf is bronze-green and one is vibrant green with white veins
Gratuitous personal plant post: anthurium crystallinum x magnificum and silver blush both pushed new leaves around the same time and they are both so, so pretty. Silver blush leaf got a small crease from getting stuck on the neighbor stem but still almost perfect.
The weather is supposed to be trash tomorrow so it’s entirely possible I will spend a large chunk of the day in the basement and I’m sure I’ll find some nonsense to share from downstairs, and dissociate with another audiobook. It’s called self-care, look it up
A plant with oval shaped leaves that have white margins
And of course, my OG love, hoya. Very nice 3” hoya carnosa ‘krimson queen’
A plant with arrow shaped leaves that are white splashed with green
A plant with arrow shaped leaves that are neon yellow green
A fern with delicate ruffle fronds
Plant with small round green/silver leaves
Fresh basics: pothos marble queen and neon, maidenhair fern, peperomia ‘little toscani’
A plant with deep green leaves that have carved veins in the leaves and notches in the tops of the leaves.
A plant with deep gray-green leaves that resemble lizard scales
A plant with shiny red-black leaves and the leaves are slightly concave
A plant with deep green arrow-shaped leaves
Several nice alocasia: renginae, dragon scale, cuprea and scalprum
