You might be an Indoor Plant Gardening Geek if…
You have a room in your house specifically for your plants. Bonus points if you also have a sink in that room to make it easier to water the plants. Double bonus points if there are so many plants in your house no one can tell which room is “just for the plants”.
You know what a “potting tidy” is. Bonus points if you have one and leave it out all the time.
Your most important holiday preparations involve potting up Amaryllis and Narcissus bulbs. Bonus points if you have given these as gifts to others, thinking they might enjoy growing them, too, even if there is no evidence of any plants in their houses.
You think that having indoor plants gives you the perfect excuse to wear your pruning holster with pruners around the house. Bonus points if you are wearing that holster right now.
You have kept at least one indoor plants alive for over twenty years. Bonus points if it is a night blooming cereus. (Oops, sorry, that might apply to just me.) Double bonus points if you think that keeping a plant for over 15 years means you have a long term relationship with it.
You keep a supply of potting soil on hand and have a good supply of empty pots, too, “just in case” you get a new plant. Bonus points if you have more than one bag of potting soil right now.
You keep your seed starting light stands up year around. (Wait, hold on that. That means you are a seed loving gardening geek. More on that in January, the official month for Garden Bloggers Seed Related Posts.)
You understand that indoor plants, beautiful as they can be, are not decorating accents, but require light, water, and nutrients to grow , and you are willing to rearrange everything else to give them the prime spots by all the windows.
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If you aren’t an indoor plant gardening geek, you might still be a general all-around gardening geek.
Still not convinced you are one after checking that post? Then check out these posts for more clues:
General all-around gardening geek, part 2
Now who’s a gardening geek? And proud to be one!
Oh, no! I don’t think I’m an indoor plant GG. It’s because I haven’t yet earned my IPGG badge. I’ll have to work on that. The only part I had was the potting soil.
Happy Thanksgiving, Carol.~~Dee
I will never be an indoor plant geek but I did take the quiz to be sure that I qualify as a general garden geek and I passed with flying colors. But I discovered what I really am is a garden travel geek (and that goes for my husband, too). Thanks, now we have a name for our condition.
I have quite a growing collection of indoor plants. 12 downstairs and 1 upstairs so far.
Well, clearly I am not an indoor gardening geek, then:
-I have a potting tidy, but don’t call it that and didn’t know about the name.
-There’s no designated plant room, nor has there ever been.
-Don’t do bulbs, for Christmas or any other time.
-Don’t have shears or a holster for shears.
-No plants of 20+ years.
On the other hand:
-I do have seed-starting lights (really more like cutting-starting lights) up year-round.
-I have tons of soil and pots on hand at all times.
-The plants get the windows, and I know they’re not just decorative.
I think you may have left some stuff off the list. E.g.,
You had to set up a spreadsheet to keep track of your watering, because you could no longer remember the full list of your plants in your head and knew you’d forget some otherwise.
You have shelves with fluorescent lights on them running along multiple walls, to add growing space. Bonus points if the shelves amount to more growing space than your windows.
You get upset when people speak about houseplants like they’re not really gardening.
You can no longer find houseplants you want to buy in stores, because you already have all of them. Bonus points if you’ve resorted to mail order to get new stuff.
You’re so desperate for more variety in your indoor plants that you bring all kinds of outdoor plants inside, just to see if they’ll work. Bonus points if some of them actually do work.
You spend more than six hours a week on watering your houseplants.
You exceed the NASA houseplants-for-clean-air recommendation by a factor of ten or more.
This was fun Carol. I’m not a geek yet, but I’m on my way with a slowly growing collection. I bought my first amaryllis bulb yesterday (so exciting!!) and a jade plant and snake plant are in my future 🙂
By the way, I’m having a Christmas giveaway on my blog this week and would love it if you popped over and put in an entry. It should be fun!
Amy
Proud to be a an everything gardening geek. I love the plant in your top picture – very like a form of what used to be called Streptocarpus saxorum but with less rounded foliage. I’ve a feeling it’s been reclassified now?!
I’ve always had more houseplants than window space so I rotate them so everyone gets a window seat on occasion. I just think rooms look cold without plants to bring them to life.
I didn’t think I was an indoor plant garden geek until I read the post and mea culpa, I am one! I have a drunkard’s path that I started from a cutting, now 23 yrs. old. I have pitched some others due to scale, etc, but yes, 4-5 bags of soil, way too many clean/ready pots. I am what I am, a garden geek.
I failed miserably. Not a single yes. At least I have something for which to strive. (The word verification is “wormes.”)
How many points do I get if I used this post to add to my christmas wish list?
Oh, my…I am not an indoor plant geek, either!
I am definitely NOT an indoor garden geek. I have one houseplant that has needed re-potting for a year.
I guess having cats in the house destroyed any plans I had of raising plants indoors.
I am soooo an Indoor Gardening Geek. The only one I missed was the name of the plant I’ve kept alive over 20 years.
In addition, I’ve still got plants that I moved 1/2 way across the country with in 1987.
And, I have plants I brought indoors to overwinter before going back out next spring.
oh, and what about not turning on the radiator in your plant room – which is the same room as where you work in, i.e. spend at least 10 hours of the day – because its right underneath the window, and that would kill your plants, but instead and for to keep the room at a nice temperature for the plants (oh, and for yourself too) you go and buy electric heaters to plug on the other side of the room?
oh dear, we are lost…
Thanks all for the nice comments. I’m in good company with many of you! And yes, that is a Streptocarpus plant! Good eye, Plant Mad Nige!
Well, I think it goes without saying, with over 175 indoor plants at the moment…
I’ve never counted how many are full-time, year-round residents, but I think it’s safe to say that number is pretty high. LOL.