Whole Lot of Nope

Inspirational song: Hold the Line (Toto)

My hands are super dry and my fingerprints feel smooth. I have trouble unlocking devices when my hands are like this, but it's unlikely I'll stop getting in this condition. It comes from doing a lot of repotting, getting my hands sanded down in coarse, soilless potting mixes. I took care of some major tasks that I've been hyperfocused on for weeks, and fixed up a couple new things. It required handling a lot of things like lava rock and succulent mixes. Was worth it, though.

Where I sit most of the time I'm home, I have a lot of opportunity to stare at problematic plant situations. I had a yucca cane I bought a year and a half ago that was dropped into a pot way too big, and it has been tipped over like the Tower of Pisa ever since. Next to it was an aglaonema I've had since my great-aunt's funeral (or my grandfather's, I keep changing my mind where I think it came from), and it has been in the same pot for at least 12 years. I decided over a month ago I would swap the pots, and today was the day. I found a foam cushion thing (hard to describe) in the aglaonema soil that was cutting off root access to the bottom third of what was there, so I ripped that off and threw it away. I downsized the yucca into an old nursery pot, so it was in an even smaller container, and set it inside the one the aglaonema just vacated. I am very happy with my work. While I was at it, I put that new little snake plant into terracotta, and sank one of the succulents into a dish garden.

I'm just about giving up on the big box garden centers until it's fully spring around here. They just aren't getting shipments of anything. I went to Home Depot, in my long quest to find orchid bark. They had nothing. Bupkis. I tempted fate and went back to the Flower Bin, knowing they had just received a large shipment that included orchid bark a couple days ago, and by finding the same store employee I talked to Tuesday, I was able to acquire it. 

While at the Flower Bin, I finally got to behold the plant I have been dying for for weeks. They had two hanging pots of hoya linearis. They were as beautiful in person as I had hoped. I petted the soft needles, and it was as great as I'd heard. And the price? Well. I took pictures to show you. And then I put the pot back on the rack. $70 for one plant is a little rich for my blood at this point.