Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture, with bonus Question for the Hive Mind

I mentioned in the last Sheba/Nina post that the Ctenanthe burle-marxii I'd planted in there had died and I wasn't sure what I was going to replace it with.

That question has been settled, at least for the moment: I bought a Peperomia puteolata ($3 at the ex-job) to fill that space, and also put in a Canna seed just for the hell of it.

There's no picture of the latter, because it hasn't actually produced any foliage yet. I just made a hole in the seed coat, soaked it in water until I saw a root emerging, and then planted it in the terrarium, so it may or may not work. If it does work, it will either quickly become too large for the space or struggle along without enough light until I take pity on it and kill it. Not sure which way that will go. But I had a ton of seeds from last year that I never got around to starting, so I figured I may as well try that and see how it goes. Nina, I'm sure, would like something in there that's a bit more climbable.

Meanwhile, Nina is shedding her skin again.

That's not as big of an event as I've made it sound -- she does it all the time, actually -- but I don't very often get a picture of it happening. In the above, the fungusy-looking stuff in the upper left is just dead-leaf debris from the Episcia -- I'm pretty sure there's no actual fungus. The brown and green in the upper right is a Begonia 'Tiger Kitten' leaf that the crickets have eaten a hole into. When the picture was taken, Nina had only managed to clear the old skin from her face, though when I looked in again about half an hour later, none of the dead skin was there anymore.

Speaking of skin: Sheba's whole allergy situation is improving, though slowly and incompletely. We could probably be more aggressive about the Benadryl: I've been giving her 25 mg in the morning when I feed her, but she usually doesn't get a second dose. Even so, her right side is basically filled back in completely. Her left side still has some spots, but they're noticeably better than they were two weeks ago, which I suppose is something.

I also have a weed-ID question for your consideration, which may or may not be related to the Sheba-allergy stuff. When the weeds first started to come up this spring, I decided to let a couple of pokeweeds (Phytolacca americana) stay, because I think they're kind of pretty. One of the pokeweeds turned out to be something else: although the young plants looked more or less identical, and both have developed extremely thick stems (maybe 2 inches / 5 cm in diameter?), the leaves on one of them never got any bigger than about 4 inches (10 cm) long, and are narrower than those on P. americana. Also the stem has stayed green, not pink, and the flowers are tiny and white and obviously something completely different. The non-pokeweed also grew much taller (about 12-15 feet / 3.5-4.5 m), as you can see in this picture:

And here's a close-up of the flowers:

I've let it continue to grow, because . . . I don't know. After the drought got to a certain point, I kind of decided that I was happy enough to see anything growing, and I didn't care what it was. Plus I was curious about what it was going to do. The overall plant shape, and the shape of the leaves, resemble some of the Amaranthus species pictures on line, especially A. tuberculatus, A. australis, and A. cannabinus, but none of those are quite a match (maybe the flowers haven't developed enough yet, though). In any case, I'm wondering if anybody knows what this is, and whether or not it, by itself, could be causing Sheba allergy problems. The flowers are fairly small and inconspicuous, so wind-pollination wouldn't be out of the question, right? And if it's wind-pollinated, maybe it could also be allergenic?

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I don't post pictures of her that often, mostly out of embarrassment at how water-spotted her walls have gotten, but Nina is still here, and is doing as well as she ever was, as far as I can tell. The Pellionia has more or less taken over the tank, being more drought-tolerant than the Fittonia (though the Fittonia is still in there, which is good, because the cuttings I tried to take have failed, after malingering for months in the basement). I intend to replant the tank at some point, but you know how it is. It's never an emergency, and it's never my most entertaining option when I'm looking for something to do, so on the rare occasions when I think about it, I still don't wind up doing it.

Not that she seems to mind. I suspect she might actually prefer it this way, actually: the crickets are harder to find, but it's much easier for her to hide, when she wants to hide.

Sheba gets a bordetella shot on Monday, which is about all the news there is for her.

Sadly, I've discovered that the anti-vaccine people are opposing vaccines for dogs, too, though in this case it appears not to be about fears of autism (can dogs even be autistic?) as it is about selling people a specific brand of (I assume) high-priced dog food. No doubt this will do the same thing for pet dogs that it's done for children, i.e., result in more cases of completely preventable illness and death, while enriching the anti-vaxers.

*sigh*

As cynical and misanthropic as I try to be, I somehow never quite manage to be cynical and misanthropic enough.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I almost got a good photo of Nina this week, but when I opened the top of the cage to get a better, less hard-water-stained angle, she skittered away into the underbrush. The terrarium underbrush is presently about 180% Pellionia pulchra. It's probably about time to cut those back again. So today's picture is of Sheba, once more:


Sheba's had a fairly normal week, though we did take her to Southeast Iowa on Sunday, to see my sister-in-law and a number of her friends. There were many people around, most of whom she hadn't met before, and some of them were even small children and teenagers, and Sheba was fine throughout (to the point where multiple people commented on how well-behaved she was).

There were only two moments where she wasn't doing well: in one case, a small child got up directly in her face and was also touching her head (Sheba growled, showed her teeth, and swung her head away, but didn't snap at the kid), and in the other, a second dog was involved, and the second dog started growling at Sheba first. That was odd, because they'd met before, and had gotten along okay then. Granted, that was close to a year ago, and they didn't get close enough to one another to smell each other; there was just a lot of barking and whining and straining at the leash and stuff. But otherwise, she spent a lot of time in the car, met lots of strangers (including one previously-unmet dog), and was mostly fine.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I went a little nuts this week propagating stuff, and cut a bunch of the Pellionia out of Nina's place in the process. (A little of the Fittonia, too.) While I was in there, I took out the Vriesea, because although it's adorable when she sleeps in there, the plant has been dying. Tiny, roundish silvery bugs (which I've seen before but have never been able to identify) were crawling around near and under the Vriesea, too; I don't know if the bugs were the cause or a symptom, but it's possible I'm going to have to dump out all the soil and start over. Ordinarily I'd try spraying with neem oil or something, but Nina has to live in there, and I don't have an alternate location for her.

The Vriesea hasn't been replaced; I stuck a cutting of the big pink Fittonia in the corner because I had one left over after potting stuff up, but it's not big enough to substitute for the Vriesea and may well die soon anyway. If it takes, then great; if it doesn't, no big loss. Nina's apparently not a big fan of change. Here she is watching the new arrival out of the corner of her eye:

List: Plants for Terrariums

(Happy Valentine's Day, if applicable.)

This is an odd category to build a list around, because "terrariums," actually, is sort of hard to define. I usually assume, when I hear "terrarium," that we're talking about an enclosed glass container, no bigger than a couple feet in any direction, that's being used to grow moisture-loving plants, but of course there are also extremely large terrariums, terrariums that fit inside an incandescent light bulb, open-topped terrariums, desert terrariums, unplanted terrariums which house animals, etc.

So if you want to get technical about it, there's no plant that couldn't be grown in some kind of terrarium if one is sufficiently flexible about the definition, so the list of "plants for terrariums" equals every plant that exists. Which is an easy answer, but not particularly satisfying.

So what I'm assuming with this list is that we're talking about: an enclosed glass container, no bigger than a couple feet in any direction, that's being used to grow moisture-loving plants. Which means that we're looking for plants that like humidity and moist soil, which grow slowly, and don't need full sun. (Full sun is fine, except that it also comes with quite a bit of heat, and since there's nowhere for heat to escape in an enclosed terrarium, sooner or later an enclosed terrarium in full sun will cook itself to death.)

Which is still a pretty long list, it turns out.

Calathea makoyana. Some Calatheas can get to be large (to at least two feet / 61 cm in diameter) quickly, especially in a terrarium, and large Calathea leaves can block most of the light from reaching plants underneath them, but it's a lot easier to grow a Calathea under glass than it is to grow one on a windowsill.

Cryptanthus NOID. Some varieties can get to be pretty large, but most of the ones I've seen top out at about six inches across (15 cm), and they don't spread like some of the choices on this list will.

Episcia 'Coco.' Happy Episcias will produce plantlets on runners, which should root when they contact the soil (you may need to pin them down gently first, so they're firmly in contact), so they do spread a little, but they stay short.

Fittonia albibenis cvv. are fast-growing, spreading plants. The small-leaved varieties stay very short, while the varieties with larger leaves reach about six inches (15 cm) tall and then bend over under their own weight. The stems root when they touch soil, so over time they'll expand.

Hemigraphis exotica. Can get to be twelve inches (30 cm) tall in good conditions, though usually they're shorter than that.

Hemionitis arifolia. Also to about 12 in / 30 cm tall and about as wide. Mature plants will produce plantlets where the petiole joins the leaf; I'm not sure if they'll bend over and root on their own, or if they have to be helped, but either way, allow a lot of space.

Pellionia pulchra. Fast-growing, aggressive trailing plant in a terrarium. Stays short, but the stems need to be cut back periodically.

Peperomia argyreia. Another somewhat mounding plant that needs about 12 in / 30 cm in height and diameter.

Saintpaulia 'Harmony's Red Star.' I don't know about this variety specifically, but there are many, many Saintpaulia varieties, including miniatures (under 6 in / 15 cm in diameter). (Most get to be larger.) All grow well in terrarium culture, and stay relatively short. Spent flowers do need to be removed regularly, so this may not be the plant for you if you want to plant your terrarium in a narrow-necked bottle.

Soleirolia soleirolii, chartreuse cv. This is another low, mat-forming ground cover. Plants stay short but will spread fairly quickly if not cut back.
Recommends and anti-recommends are more or less pointless here, because what's going to work for you depends on the size of terrarium in question and what you want it to do. If you're interested in planting a terrarium, find out how big the plants you're thinking about including will get before you plant them. You should also try to find out how fast they'll grow: some people like having to get in and prune back the plants every so often, and some people don't.

A few of these plants will also need a more specialized growing medium than ordinary bagged potting mix. Most orchids would like the conditions in a terrarium just fine, but need to be planted in bark instead of potting mix, so I left them off the list.

Not pictured:

• Adiantum capillus-veneris (maidenhair fern)
  
• Aeschynanthus spp. (lipstick plants, goldfish plants)
  
• Asplenium antiquum (birds-nest fern)
  
• Asplenium 'Austral Gem'
• Asplenium nidus (birds-nest fern)
  
• Begonia rex-cultorum cvv. and small rhizomatous Begonias. I personally wouldn't try to grow a rex begonia outside of a terrarium.
  
• Blechnum brasiliense (tree fern) and other tree ferns
  
• Most Calathea spp. are suitable, at least when younger
  
• Chamaedorea elegans (parlor palm)
  
• Codiaeum variegatum cvv.
• Columnea cvv.
• Cryptbergia cvv.
• Cyanotis kewensis (teddy bear vine)
• Cyrtomium falcatum (holly fern)
• Davallia spp. (rabbit's-foot fern)
  
• Didymochlaena truncatula (mahogany fern)
• Dionaea muscipula (venus flytrap), though they have fairly specific temperature and water-quality needs which won't necessarily mesh with other plant species
• Epipremnum aureum (pothos)
• Ficus pumila (creeping fig)
  
• Some of the smaller Guzmania cvv.
• Hypoestes phyllostachya (polka-dot plant)
• Ludisia discolor (jewel orchid) and the other jewel orchids like Macodes and Goodyera spp.
  
• Maranta leuconeura cvv. (prayer plant)
• Nematanthus cvv. (guppy plant)
• Some of the smaller Neoregelia cvv.
• Nephrolepis exaltata cvv. (Boston fern)
• Pellaea rotundifolia (button fern)
• Peperomia caperata
• Peperomia clusiifolia
• Peperomia glabella
  
• Peperomia griseo-argentea
• Peperomia obtusifolia cvv. (baby rubber plant)
  
• Peperomia orba
• Peperomia verschaffeltii
• Some self-heading Philodendron hybrids, especially 'Autumn,' 'Moonlight,' and 'Prince of Orange'
• Philodendron brandtianum
• Philodendron hederaceum cvv. (heart-leaf philodendron)
  
• Pilea cadierei (aluminum plant)
  
• Pilea depressa (baby toes)
  
• Pilea involucrata cvv. (friendship plant)
  
• Pilea microphylla
  
• Pilea mollis 'Moon Valley'
• Pilea nummularifolia
• Pilea peperomioides? (Chinese money plant, missionary plant)
  
• Plectranthus oertendahlii?
• Podocarpus macrophyllus (Buddhist pine)
  
• Polypodium formosanum
• Polypodium grandiceps (elkhorn fern)
• Polyscias fruticosa cvv. (ming aralia, parsley aralia)
• Pteris cretica cvv. (table fern, Cretan brake)
• Saxifraga stolonifera (strawberry begonia)
• It seems to me like Schlumbergera cvv. (Christmas cactus, holiday cactus) ought to work, though I can't say I've seen it attempted much.
• Scindapsus pictus (silver pothos)
• Scyphularia pycnocarpa (possum tail fern)
• Selaginella spp. (spikemoss)
• Miniature Sinningia cvv. (gloxinia)
• Smaller Spathiphyllum cvv. (peace lily)
• Streptocapus saxorum (streptocarpella)
• Streptocarpus cvv. (cape primrose)
• Stromanthe spp.
• Syngonium podophyllum (arrowhead vine)
  
• Syngonium wendlandii
  
• Tillandsia cyanea and other Tillandsia spp. (pink quill, air plants)
  
• Tolmiea menziesii (piggyback plant)
  
• Tradescantia spathacea? (moses in the cradle, oyster plant)
  
• Vanilla planifolia? (vanilla orchid)
• Small Vriesea cvv.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

It's Nina's turn this week, and I was going to get a brand-new picture of her, just . . . I don't know, just because I was -- but when I first put the camera in the terrarium, she hid. And she was really, really good at hiding, too, because the Pellionia has done such a thorough job of climbing over everything that the actual soil in there is pretty much hidden from view. Plus her coloration is sort of camouflage all by itself. So this is the best I could do for a current Nina picture:

She's under there somewhere.
Since Nina is unable to fulfill her duties this week, Sheba will be filling in.


When Sheba first got here, almost a year ago, right away she wanted to jump up on the couch. And right away we told her no. And that was pretty much that, for a while. She wasn't supposed to be on the couch, and she understood that. (She did forget herself occasionally. I'd be in the office and hear her jump up on the couch and then back down again immediately. I don't recall ever having to tell her to get down, it was that fast.)

But I decided that I kind of wanted her on the couch, when we watched TV, because . . . I don't know. We'd be up there, and she'd be on the floor, and -- the floor seemed so very far away. So we had to re-explain the couch policy, which she likewise understood almost immediately. It's turned out well: I like having the three of us together, the husband doesn't have a problem with it, everybody's happy. Sheba seems to have concluded that we've given the couch to her, though, so that's where she sits, most of the day. She'll still allow us to use it at night, though.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I am pleased to report that I have achieved control over the weather. Within 24 hours of my announcement last Wednesday that I would be shunning winter until it stopped being so cold and dry, we had a nice overnight snowfall that left a couple inches of snow on the ground and covered up all that unsightly dead grass. And then it warmed up by like 10-15 degrees (F; this would be 6-8 degrees C) also, so we're now having high temperatures in the 20s (-2 to -7C) instead of single digits (-13 to -18C), which is considerably more comfortable.

Obviously my first project as the controller of the planet's weather will be to fix that whole global warming thing (you're welcome), but Eastern Iowans should be warned that I'm fond of watching tornadoes, and I won't know how good my aim is until I've practiced a bit. Consequently, early in the spring of 2011 might be a really excellent time to get those walls reinforced, fix the weak spots on the roof, and check the fine print of your homeowner's insurance.

Meanwhile.

How does Sheba feel about the snow? It's hard to tell. I know it makes it harder to play fetch-the-tennis-ball. She's not good at finding them when they're under snow, though I think that's partly an issue of not knowing they're there to be looked for unless she actually sees them fall in: I tried rolling one around in her dog food before we went out, to see if the smell would make them easier to find, and although she did eventually find the ball once when it went into a snowdrift, it took her a pretty long time, and was pretty obviously a case of her just plowing through the drift at random until it turned up. Plus she kept stopping and looking back at me, as if to say you really want me to keep looking? Is the ball worth that much to you?

Anyway, it's technically Nina's turn for a photo, but I'm doing a Sheba picture again because I really wanted a good snow/Sheba photo last week but had insufficient snow for what I was imagining. Behold and marvel:


And whatever it looks like, that's not, I repeat not a photo of Sheba getting hit in the face with a miniature soccer ball: it's a toy, and it has a loop of nylon or something that comes out of one side. She's carrying it by the loop.

We were going to enroll her in an after-school soccer program, but we don't have the money to buy a minivan right now, which I understand is required, so we're going to wait and see whether she wants to play, first.

Also, it's time for -- *sigh* -- the weekly update about Nina's new place. It was improving when I soaked the sides in vinegar the first two times, but I did it a third time -- for something like three hours, on the theory that if a little vinegar is good, then a lot must be awesome -- and I swear, if anything, it came out of that round looking worse.

There are two main kinds of crud present here, and because it's very hard to photograph something transparent with an auto-focusing camera, the pictures are not going to be great at revealing what's going on. But this is the best I could do after taking many photos.

First there's the fine-grained, cloudy stuff that looks like hard-water stains but doesn't come off with CLR, razor blades, vinegar, or anything else I've tried. It's most visible as a diagonal line in the lower right-hand corner of this picture:


And then there's the stuff that looks like it used to be some sort of horrible mucusy slime. It's coarser and clearer, and feels rough to the touch, but again, CLR, razor blades, etc., don't touch it.


The husband was supposed to pick up a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser last time he was in town, but he forgot (which is fine), so I'm still going to try that eventually (honestly, it was kind of nice to have a week wherein I didn't have to think about the stupid aquarium so much), but otherwise I'm out of ideas. I haven't tried muriatic (= hydrochloric) acid, per reader recommendation, because we don't already have any and I'm a little skeptical about it. (If vinegar, a mild acid, makes the situation worse, then what's a strong acid going to do? Also: would toilet bowl cleaner be essentially the same thing? 'Cause I'm pretty sure we have that already.) But I'm filing it away for consideration if the Magic Eraser thing doesn't work out.

I am quickly losing hope, though. The aquarium might still be a good thing to have around -- even if I can't use it for Nina, I could move the fish, or use it as a high-humidity plant hospital, or something like that -- but honestly, I fell into despair about moving Nina into it when the acetone failed. Granted, I fall into (and out of) despair pretty easily. But still. I didn't think there was anything acetone couldn't dissolve, or at least loosen. Seeing it fail was like finding out Snuffleupagus isn't real.

Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

Nina had a pretty eventful week this week, in that I have finally cleaned up her terarrium. I removed the Stromanthe burle-marxii, which had grown from a single 4-inch (10 cm) tall baby to a monster with eight clumps of leaves that was taking over two-thirds of the tank, divided it, and potted it up into four pots:


And then I replanted that part of the terrarium with a Peperomia caperata and some rooted cuttings of Pellionia pulchra. None of those were doing that well outside of the terrarium, but I'm hoping the terrarium environment will give them whatever they were missing and they'll be happy.

I left the Vriesea because that's where Nina sleeps sometimes, and it seemed to be doing fine in the tank anyway, without needing any changes.

I didn't take any Before pictures of the terrarium, because, frankly, I was embarrassed by it and didn't want you to see. I do have an After, though the After is also embarrassing in that it looks pretty sparsely planted. I'm hoping the Peperomia will grow tall enough to look appropriate for the space (if it doesn't rot first), and then the Pellionia can do the trailing, ground-cover thing it does. If the Peperomia fails, I have Pilea 'Moon Valley' as a backup, and if the Pellionia fails, I can try Saxifraga stolonifera.


Whether Nina will like this any better or not, I don't know. She wasn't exactly complaining before, and may well have liked the previous version better because it was easier to hide. This is the total feedback I've gotten so far:


Sheba's week was more typical. We're going on way fewer walks than we were, because I overheat too quickly when we do. Instead we've been playing fetch in the back yard in the mornings, for however long she wants to (usually only 10-20 minutes), which is easier on me because I can stand in the shade. I figure she gets her exercise either way.

That's also the reason why I'm not posting as many pictures of plants from gardens around town: we're not seeing them anymore. This'll probably change again in September or so. Summer is a stupid season.

Anyway. So here's Sheba, taking a break from the fetching in the shade of our maple tree: