Murder Most Horrid!*

*is the name of a tv show from a while ago...

Guys?  I think I've killed another plant.

Sigh.

I'd show you a picture but I'm pretty embarrassed (and rather horrified) at what I've done so I don't really want other humans witnessing it (even though I'm about to write about it).

I think I wrote about it at the time but I bought a device to help me not over water my plants.

It's a like soil moisture tester.  You stick it in the dirt of your houseplant and it tells you if the soil is dry, ok or wet.  (Make sure if you have one you clean it off before using it on the next plant so you don't inadvertently spread any illnesses.)

One of my frustrations is that many of the plants I have are not good at giving clear signals.

Like I've seen people posting photos of their "dramatic" houseplants that wilt when dry and then perk back up when watered.  Either mine aren't those types of plants or I never let them get dry enough to wilt.... ahem. (Admitting that's a possibility.)

I think I told you I had a lot of death a couple of years ago when I listened to my neighbour who told me she watered her Grandmother's plants weekly.  I didn't ask about the light/heat in said Grandmother's space so just thought "once a week" was a good idea.  And then I ended up murdering (drowning essentially) a few of my plants.  I was devastated.

After that I bought the moisture thing and allowed myself a couple of new plants.

And until very recently I've been doing well.

But one of my plants showed signs of being unwell... a leaf was yellowing.  GAH!  I googled and as always the results were that it was either getting too much or not enough water (sigh).  Knowing my tendency is to over water I assumed this was the case and left it alone for a few weeks.

I also cut off the yellow leaf (which I really should google if that's a good thing but I don't like the look of death hanging around you know?)

So last week I thought I'd check the plant and it came up dry and so I gave it a water.

But now the other leaves are yellowing and when I tested the soil it came up WET (like very wet.)

Sigh.

I've probably killed the whole damn plant, but maybe it will save itself (I doubt it.)

I've moved it to a spot with more light but as I'm typing this I'm worried it has an illness it might spread to the two healthy happy plants that live there so I don't know.

But man I'm tired of trying to be good to plants and then killing them by, I dunno, working too hard?

How do I teach myself to neglect plants?

It makes me sad when this happens and then upset at myself because I know the plant would be ok if I'd never brought it home or if it lived somewhere else.

And then I debate throwing out the half sick plants I have but I want to keep hoping they'll get better but also how did I go from being so good at caring for spider plants (for example) that I gave away babies as gifts (C-Dawg now has like 10 grand babies from one I gave her) to killing all of the ones I have?  What about my plant care changed so much?

Can I break my "weekly watering" habit somehow?  How do I have happier plants and not murder them?

Waaaaaah.