I’ve decided to try to grow a Bougainvillea indoors. It’s did very well in the house during the winter and I’m going to build a trellis to let it climb. It’s a miracle I remembered to bring it inside in time, but happy I did.

April marks one year ago that I brought the Asian Council tree home and it’s thriving I accidentally broke off one of it’s branches while moving it through a doorway, but propagated the stem, so there’s a baby version of the tree growing in a separate pot. To have success with this tree took years of killing a lot of plants. I gave my indoor plants too much attention and one could say, I literally loved them to death.

Indoor plants want scheduled maintenance.

The calendar on my phone has reminders set when to check on each plant, otherwise, they are pretty much ignored. It’d be nice if they were all on the same schedule, but it doesn’t work that way. It depends on the type of plant and what size pot they’re in to determine their needs. If a plant doesn’t look happy, it’s sitting in the wrong spot, so I’ll move it until it begins to perk up which is normally not the spot I’d chosen for it.

They know their needs better than me.

To see if they needed watering, I used to stick my index finger in the dirt to test the soil. This works with a small, shallow pot, but not a large, deep pot holding a tree. You have to test for moisture deeply because the roots tell the story of it’s needs. Years ago I had a moisture meter and went in search of one again. They’ve gotten fancy with digital readouts, but I struggle keeping batteries on hand, so I went with simple.

I recently watered the Asian Council tree and made note in my calendar to check him again in 10 days. We can be mindful of our surroundings without giving attention and since using the moisture meter, I no longer feel like the plant killer.