My Potted Plant Confessional

I need potted plants in January.  After taking down my Christmas decorations, my house seems so dull and lifeless—I just need something green and living. 

I’m not great with plants. 

In fact, I’m a potted plant serial killer.

But I’ve been trying to be better and have had some success with a few {non-plastic} varieties.

Now, I don’t know the names of all of these plants, so if anyone out there has a greener thumb than me wants to chime in, that’d be great.  I try to steer away from plants that like a lot of attention.  Things like water and dusting must be optional to my plants.

I found this next one after a trip to Puerto Rico.  I know it’s a tropical plant, but folks, it was growing out of the sidewalk.  That’s a tough plant.  When I came across it at the store when I got home, I decided to give it a try.  It has survived a long time {for me} with little to no attention and *ahem* infrequent waterings. 

It also has spread quite a bit.  In fact, about six months ago I gave a piece of it to one of my friends, and it survived the separation.  Win.  This is what it is called:

Here’s another pretty tough plant.

I had one of these just after I was married and neglected it for a good 6 months to a year before it died.  If you take care of this variety, it spreads and gets long vines.  My sister-in-law had one once that spread the distance of an entire wall in her family room.

This is a newer one to my collection, but seems to be fairly hearty.  It went for a long time in a too-small pot, but managed to grow and has recently had it’s six-month birthday.  Quite an accomplishment at my house.

My husband has an orange tree.  Citrus is a little fussier, so I’m not responsible for this one.  But it’s pretty nonetheless.

The grand champion at our house, though is this little aloe vera plant.  It has survived about 15 years and I don’t think it has been watered more than 20 times.  For a while, it was in the bathroom, so maybe the steam was enough for it.  It’s a little scraggley, but alive.

What are your houseplant secrets?  Now that my plants are living long enough to get dusty, I could use some tips on how to clean them…pfft….who am I kidding?!

January Visiting Teaching Message—The Attributes of Jesus Christ: Obedient Son

This month’s lesson is centered on obedience.  It reads:

“Following Jesus Christ’s example of obedience increases our faith in Him.

Our Spiritual growth takes place as we draw close to God through obedience and invite the power of the Savior’s Atonement into our lives.”

I also love the thought by Elder D. Todd Christofferson that says

“As we walk in obedience to the principles and commandments of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we enjoy a continual flow of blessings promised by God in His covenant with us.  Those blessings provide the resources we need to act rather than simply be acted upon as we go through life…Obedience gives us greater control over our lives, greater capacity to come and go, to work and create.”

The idea that obeying gives us more freedom seems like a paradox, but the reality is that our Heavenly Father knows us.  He knows our needs, and our personalities.  He has a plan for us that’s better than anything we can do on our own, and if we will just obey Him and draw close to Him, we can become more like Him and do great things.

For the Visiting Teaching message this month, I printed the message on some cute cardstock {there are two per page} and made a little envelope for it by folding some paper and stapling it.  I printed the little tag, and taped it to the front of the envelope and then glued a stick to the envelope and stuck it into a little potted plant.

Happy Visiting Teaching!