Monday, 18 November 2024

Uh, No.

I just had a bit of a probably legit panic.

I have a plant (a type of dracaena I think.... long and leggy both in stalk and leaves) and the leaves started yellowing quite suddenly.  I know I'm prone to over watering so after a few days of watching and seeing more leaves go I thought I might check things out a little more closely.

So I went over to the plant and lifted it from its catch plate base thing and you guys?  THERE WERE CRITTERS!  Like little tiny squirming like I don't even know what, grubs?  Larvae?  MINISCULE  LITTLE TINY WRIGGLING ALIVE THINGS THAT I DID NOT WANT TO BE THERE OMG WHAT THE ACTUAL SWEAR WORD?

(Just to say never in all the years of having house plants have I ever seen anything like this and I'm very grateful for that and hope to never again.)

So I first of all HASTILY murdered those things and cleaned out the base and then the sink and then I set about repotting this thing because who KNOWS what else was still in the soil amiright?????

Now not that long ago my neighbour let me know that store bought soil can often have fungus gnat eggs in it so the internet told me to sterilize that soil with boiling water (instructions available if you google for it) and so I set about doing that while getting rid of the old soil and for the first time in my life actually washing off the roots as I've seen "plant people" online doing.  The roots didn't look in great shape to me but what do I know so I let fall off whatever wanted to fall off....

Then I put the new sterilized soil into the sterilized pot and I'm sure I could have done more and better but I'm really hoping that my plant is happier and does well in the next few months (I know it's not the ideal time for repotting but OMG BUGS!) and I am not going to continue to google for what those creatures might have been and I hope to never see them again and I hope I didn't just murder my plant while trying to save it from bug based murder.... you know?

So yeah, probably a more legit thing to be freaking out about rather than the general state of the world and my friend's mental well being plus something I can actually do something about.  (Hopefully.)

But also, GAH!

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