House Plant Pots

Sometimes, you just decide "enough is enough" with some plant pots.  The pots are ugly and mismatched, wrong-sized, etc.  But it never gets far enough up your To Do list.   Well, I sure have enough important things to do, but I've also been looking down the list for things that are more easily solved.

When I was transferred to a different office in 2000, was lucky enough to get a window.  But it was north-facing so no direct sunlight.  Caladiums or Coleus probably would have done OK, but I bought 2 Sandseveria snake-eye plants like these.  

They thrived!  By the time I retired in 2006, they were filled two 12" pots (and were greatly admired).  I brought them home, of course.  And I repotted them and divided them into 10 pots.  But they have been languishing by the basement patio door ever since in cheap ugly black pots of various sizes.

I decided it was time to fix that!  First thing was to get ten 8" matching pots.  And I wanted them in light green to show off the leaf colors.  That was harder than I expected.  Online, I checked Amazon, I checked Walmart, I checked Home Depot.  Green is not a popular color for plant pots.  I suppose they think you already have the "green" with the plants.

And there are 3 qualities of pots.  Cheap and thin plastic, sturdy thick plastic, and ceramic/terra cotta.  I wanted thick plastic.  And buying some of any of those is tricky.  I saw some nice ones for $4 each, but the shipping per pot was another $7, which explained the cheap price per pot, LOL!

But I eventually found some that were acceptable and $7 each with free shipping.  They look pretty sturdy.

They're are just going outside for the Summer, and I thought the pots should "at least" match.  In Winter, they can sit under low light and do fine.  So that problem is off the list...

But I had a second houseplant problem.  My master bathroom gets southern sunlight several hours a day, and I have grown variegated ivies there for 20 years.  Well, they eventually went all solid green, and then suddenly, they all died.  There is an end to every plant...

So I thought of what to replace them with (in a cleaned planter box and fresh soil).  I was looking for Coleus (which was ridiculously expensive per plant), but I found Caladiums at Home Depot on sale.  Caladiums don't need much light.  So it occurred to me that I could have 2 trays of them. 

I have 4 of these.

And 2 of these (or similar)...

One for the Master Bathroom with 3-4 hours of direct sunlight shade most of the rest of the day, and the other for the Main (windowless) Bathroom and then trade the trays every few days.  It should work.