mahalo.

After making a Costco run and seeing that they sold houseplants, I had a kick in the head towards the end of last week and decided that i wanted to some nice houseplants to put by the window. Since the window in the living room goes pretty much from six inches off of the floor up to a foot from the ceiling, I figured that nice, tall plants framing the window would give a nice touch to the interior decor.

The first idea was to get Birds of Paradise, however, at this point, I’m still not sure if Birds can be grown as indoor plants. If my current venture fails, I’ll have to take a look at it.

As it is, I chose to go with these pretty looking fern-y things that already stood about 5′ high. I bought them at $20 each from Costco (my reasoning, however flawed, was that if they can survive a non-nursery environment, then they can probably survive under some real/well-intented care) and brought them home, feeling pretty good about everything.

After settling them in, I ran over to Home Depot to buy new pots (the ones they came in were cracking), pot bases and a watering can, and while at Home Depot I also noticed that the exact plant that I bought was sold there as well, this time with a label. Turns out my new plants are Majesty(ic) Palms (Ravenea rivularis).

Along with a Home Depot associate mentioning that the majesties are “fickle”, a number of internet articles out there make it sound like I chose just about the most difficult houseplant to care for ever.

I thought that plant care primarily involved two things (1) light and (2) water. Turns out there is also (3) Defend your plants against evil critters - such as the crazy spider mites, which, if you’re not observant, can bring down a plant before you even know it.

Despite the unfortunate circumstances, I don’t intend to allow this endeavor to fail. I already have ironite and pest spray, along with one of them cool pressurized plant sprayers. I’ve already soaped down the leaves in an attempt to kill off any spider mites that may have been present. I’ve even sprayed them after the soaping in an attempt to create a more humid environment for these floridian implants.

I’ll look at the challenge as any good parent would deal with a difficult child. They may drive you crazy, and you’ll have to spend a lot of time dealing with their particular issues, but you don’t abandon them until they become covered or infested by killer insects.

And like anything precious that you might lose, I’ll put off naming them until they make it past that treacherous first month in a new habitat.

The leaves are a little droopy now, but if they wake up in the morning, I’ll post some pictures of how they look and their comfortable setting at home.

Update: Looking at them again in the morning, I think the plants were hosed before they even got here. It looks like there’s fairly rampant fungi/bacterial blight on these plants already. I can try cutting them off at the stem (it’s basically on every leaf), but I’m not sure if that will be enough.

It’s possible that this may just be a result of over-watering, so I’ll wait it out, but otherwise reading more about the White Bird of Paradise makes it look promising as a second attempt.

Here’s a random picture from my place during an evening with an interesting looking cloud formation.

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