New plants!

The husband and I went to my ex-job last Saturday, because they'd gotten in a new shipment of tropicals on Thursday. And I bought some, which was the point of going. However! I was also thinking of you, my readers, and took pictures of various things I did not buy, just because you will find them interesting. (No, seriously: very high probability of interestingness.) However, for this post, we're talking about the slightly more boring, but prettier, stuff that I did buy. These are them:

Fittonia albivenis, apparently.
I don't think this was probably a good decision in the long run, but you never know. I like the look of these, and always have, but as we know, I'm not good with plants that don't bounce back if they get a little dry. But it was small and cheap, and in the event that it looks like it's falling apart, a little bit can always be salvaged (maybe) by rooting a cutting in Nina's terrarium, so we're going to try it.

Also, according to davesgarden.com, the correct name is no longer Fittonia argyroneura nor F. verschaffeltii, but is now F. albivenis. We'll see whether I can manage to remember this. It's not as nice-sounding of a name.

Philodendron 'Golden Emerald.'
Yes, I know what I said, not even that long ago, about not wanting to try this one until I have a better understanding of Philodendrons in general. However, this one was five times less expensive, so I can experiment on it with less risk. Which makes it acceptable.

I saved all my genuinely risky stuff for another plant:

Heliconia psittacorum 'Bright Lights.'
WCW has had one of these before, maybe not 'Bright Lights' but some kind of Heliconia, and had told me about it a long time ago. The only part I remembered was the part where she said that they're really prone to spider mites inside. I asked her about this (she was working on Saturday) and she said that they're not as bad about it as bananas (Musa spp.; Ensete spp.), maybe more along the lines of Strelitzia. Which I've seen mites on Strelitzia before, but not on my plants at home, so I figured success was plausible enough to be worth a try.


Also like Strelitzia are the flowers, kinda, in that they're orange and strange and spiky-angular. Not what I generally think of for "Heliconia." I don't mind, though. If my Strelitzias are never going to flower indoors, and smart money says they won't, I may as well have something kinda sorta similar that does stand a chance of producing flowers. No?

Neoregelia 'Ardie.'
And then there's 'Ardie,' who somehow wound up on my wish list (see sidebar) a while back, and who I never expected to meet in person, but who WCW was so impressed with that she called me at home on Saturday morning to tell me about it. (Some of the other plants got mentions too. But she knows I like Neoregelias.) I'd already been planning to go in, but finding out about this made me really happy about it.


I obviously have all of four days' experience with 'Ardie,' and don't know how it's going to work out between us, but so far, the only Neoregelias that haven't worked well for me are divisions that failed to root. So I think we'll be fine.


He's definitely got a trustworthy-looking face, right?