Two Wish List Plants – Got Them!
Probably a lot of you read houseplant blogs all around the Internet. And of course, on YouTube there are so many Houseplant Gurus who always tempt us with Wish List Plants that we all would love to have.
Most of the time, these plants are fairly expensive (some horribly expensive), and I know that I will never have those plants, but I feel like I hit the jackpot here and got Two Wish List Plants that I have been wishing for forever.
There still remains a long list of Wish List Plants that I want, but at least I have these two right now. I got a decent sized plant, plus a nice heavy ceramic pot with each of them, so I consider that the plants themselves were roughly $8 each.
You see, the price was $15.99 so when I consider that the ceramic pot would have been a minimum of $8-10 in any shop, then I consider the other half to be the price of the plant. Certainly beats the price that I see online for a 4″ pot at $28.
Wish List Plant – Philodendron Birkin
The Birkin is a really interesting plant. Its variegation is like a pin-striped suit and the green leaves are crossed with yellow-ish lines. It is said to start out with green leaves that develop the lines as they get older. I haven’t had mine long enough to know if that is true or not.
Even though the Birkin is a philodendron, it is not a vining plant but grows into a bushy-mounded plant. My appears to have red lines running up the stems. I tried looking up info on why that should be and the only thing I could find was information on its parent plant.
This Birkin is a sport of the Rojo Congo, a red-leafed plant that seems to be a great plant for my Wish List also. It appears that these plants are now being grown from Tissue Cultures. I don’t fully understand this, but now that Birkins has grown that way, the price is lower and allows me to get one.
The Birkin likes bright indirect light and wants to be left to dry out between watering periods. She likes to have her soil hold a bit of moisture but needs water to drain well through the soil. She does NOT like wet feet.
My plant felt heavy and wet when we got her home, so I removed her from her cache pot (she is in a brownish-black ceramic pot) and it has a liner that is the typical nursery pot. I can remove her to water thoroughly when she is dry, letting all the water drain for 30 minutes or so, then replace her in the cache.
Another Wish List Plant – ZZ Raven Plant
This easy-to-grow plant is called Zamioculcas Zamiifolia so you can see why it is commonly called just a ZZ plant. The cultivar that I have been wanting for so long is called Raven and you can see by its color why it is called Raven.
The color is a purple-black steely green, and the Raven is very dark when paired with another plant. The regular ZZ plant is a deep shade of green with new shoots growing in with a paler green color. The new shoots on the Raven appear to be more green and grow into their black color.
The Raven is said to be a little more slow-growing than the normal green variety, so if you have less room for plants and don’t like them to get too big too fast, this may be the right plant for you.
It likes bright indirect light (light which casts a sharp shadow) but can grow pretty well in lower light situations. That is what I love about the ZZ Plant. I love changing this up all the time, so getting to move it here and there is wonderful.
Water it sparingly maybe every couple of weeks in summer when your finger feels dryness as you poke it down into the soil. In winter, perhaps once a month is all it will need. Don’t over water! If you look into the soil, it is growing from a big “tuber” which holds its water along with its thick stems.
So easy for beginners! It almost looks artificial it is so pretty and shiny and waxy looking. It will be a plant you will love.
Get yourself one….or more!