This is the first of two posts regarding my office plants. Enjoy!
It has almost been a year since I wrote the first post on this blog entitled "The Tale of a Troubled Pothos", and then a subsequent post about the status of the plant in "Work Pothos Update", where I chronicled having to save a pot-bound pothos. The plant has been growing wonderfully since it was repotted in December 2007. It seems to enjoy and flourish behind my computer monitor which I use extensively for my work. Hopefully it will not completely wrap around my monitor otherwise my boss might not be too happy!
The next plant, which is pictured above, is a Dieffenbachia 'Perfection'. It was purchased from Lowe's last week since they were having a 75% off sale on their tropicals, so I was able to purchase this plant for around $1.25, which seems like a steal for such a nice looking plant. Annah and I have another one of these dieffenbachia's at our house.
The next work plant is my Zamioculcas zamiifolia ("ZZ Plant"), which you can read about in an older post here. Earlier this spring this plant was very busy sending up new growth all over the place and by the time it was all done it had pretty much doubled in size. Since then, however, not much has really happened with this plant and it is probably due to be moved to a new pot one of these days. It is one of my favorite plants at work since it does not require much work except for the occasional watering.
The next group of plants are located at a west-facing doorway, so it receives the afternoon sun. It is also a door that is not frequently used so the temperature and humidity usually stay rather constant. The individual plants will be discussed below.
The first of these plants is a Pachira aquatica or Money Tree, which I guess is technically not my plant, but is instead belongs to my boss. It was given to him by me and my fellow coworkers for his birthday in September of 2007. I have been taking care of it and watering it since then. The plant has been doing rather well, although it has lost some leaves due to problems of either watering too much or too little. There was also a period of time when the plant was struggling because it was in too small of a pot. Sometime around May I repotted this plant into the green pot you see now. The plant still might need some work to get it to grow better, but at the current time this plant seems to be doing just fine.
The two other plants growing in this part of the office are the "China Doll" (Radermachia sinica) on the left and the "Areca palm" (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens) on the right. These were two other plants that were purchased from Lowe's during their 75% off sale on tropical plants, and they seemed like a good deal for $1.25 each! I do have some concern with the China Doll plant since Annah's mom tried to grow one of these plants but did not succeed in doing so. It has so far survived one week in the office and has hopefully received an adequate amount of light and water. There will be a future update on this plant to see whether it has survived or not. The Areca palm has also survived the past week and also seems to be getting an adequate amount of sunlight, although it is my first Areca palm so I hope I will be able to grow it!
Check back in a few days for the second post regarding my office plants!
That's a lot of office plants! We've had a ZZ plant for years, but only recently identified it as it was nameless when it came to us and has been ignored rather.
China dolls are one of those plants like Dieffenbachia where you either have a really good experience with them or a really bad experience with them. I'm not sure what the difference between the two types of people is, exactly, but I'm in the bad-experience category.