Trellising, Repotting, Moss Pole Making + Chatty Plant Chores 🌿

Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel. If you're new here, hi, my name's Claire and this is Yoli. I make videos all about house plant care, sharing tips and tricks I've learnt over the years to help keep your plants happy and healthy. And as usual, I have got a lot of planty things to be getting on with. I have majorly, majorly fallen behind on my plant care recently and I've got a long list of things that I've kind of been saying, oh now I'll do that next week, I'll do that tomorrow, that'll be fine for another day and the day has come where I need to start tackling it. So if you've got planty things that you've been putting off, then feel free to do them along with me and we can have a chat and hopefully it'll be a little bit more fun. But yeah, I hope you enjoy it. Let's get into it. So the first thing that I'm actually really excited to do, a company called Trelly reached out to me a while ago and they make these really cool plant trellises and they've sent me a couple. So I'm super excited to try these out. They have also very kindly sponsored today's video. So thank you Trelleaf. But yeah, I haven't unboxed them, unboxed them, taken them out of their packaging yet or anything like that. So I'm going to be getting some plants on trellises today. So this one, this one here is called the Palmella and I'm just going to take it out, have a look at it. Oh, that is so gorgeous. Look at that. I feel like a plant is going to look so cool climbing up that. The thing I love as well with Trelleaf is that they're a woman owned business and all of their materials are completely compostable. They're also a sustainable business where they source all of their materials locally. I'm pretty sure they're based in Atlanta, but I'll link all of their website details and everything below. But yeah, I absolutely love that. And then the next one, which is the Monstrella, this one looks absolutely huge and I wasn't expecting it to be this big. So let's have a look at it and see, see what I could put on this. Oh wow. That really is big. But also that is so beautiful. I saw some on their website that were really beautifully decorated, but for me, I just personally love the kind of natural woody look. So yeah. Oh, okay. I'm excited. What plants should I put on them? So one that I brought over that I kind of initially thought of just because this one is in desperate need of a repot anyway, but it's my Begonia Albopicta and I'm kind of thinking maybe that would work quite well on the bigger one. I think that would look quite nice actually. I was also thinking a Hoya because obviously it's got all of the lovely kind of bits that you could wind the tendrils around to kind of help encourage new growth. But I have been meaning to do something to my Begonia for a while because at the moment she's just held upright by one stick. So I think I'm going to start with her and then maybe, maybe I'll get one of my smaller Hoyas on the smaller trellis. Okay, cool. I'm going to grab some soil, grab my potting mat, and then we will start with the Begonia and then I will see how I'm feeling. Right. So I gave my Begonia a water last night. So hopefully this is going to be a little bit easier. I'm just going to start off by taking a look at the roots to see what pot size I think I need to use. It has needed a repot for quite a while. And as you can tell for the size pot it's in, it is really quite big now. So I'm just going to take it off the current stake that it's on. God, I tied this on tightly and I cannot get it off. Okay. I know as soon as I take this out, it's literally just going to fall. Right. Okay. So there's actually not as much rootage as I thought there would be at all. And in fact, the roots, let me get a bit of the soil if I was going to say the roots actually don't look quite as healthy as they could, but let me get in there and have a look. Begonia roots are just so fine compared to a lot of the other roots that I'm kind of used to with my plants. And I think because as well, this is the only Begonia that I've got in my collection. I'm not a huge Begonia person. I'm, I'm not quite sure what to expect, but yeah, they look very fine and spindly. And I think I was kind of expecting them to be a bit beefier. I can literally barely see them. Do you know what I mean? And I'm, I don't think that's because they've got root rot or anything. Obviously the plant is looking really healthy, but I might actually just Google Begonia roots and just have a look because I'm not that familiar with them and I don't want to put it up if it does need something else doing to it. So I'm just going to have a little Google. Okay. I think by the looks of it, all of the pictures that are coming up, this is just kind of normal. So I'm not going to be too worried. I'm just I'm just going to keep going. But yeah, as I say, I think because pretty much all of my other plants have quite thick roots and you can kind of see them quite easily. This, this has just kind of thrown me off a bit, but it's fine. I think the other thing about the soil that this Begonia is currently in, because I haven't repotted this since I've got it, is that as you can see, it's really quite dense. It doesn't seem to offer any kind of decent aeration and it has become quite compact in the pot. So I'm hoping I've mixed a good amount of perlite in with the soil that I'm using and I'm hoping that should just kind of help to keep the roots a bit happier and hopefully this plant will grow really well for me. Okay. So I don't think I'm actually going to need to, I thought I'd need to move it up a lot, but I don't think I'm going to need to move the pot size up that much because the root system really isn't that big. I've actually got another pot here that I'm kind of thinking might do it. Let's try it with the trellis as well to make sure it's all going to fit. Oh my God. I love it. I think that's going to look amazing. Okay. I'm going to use this pot and although you can kind of see the bottom of the trellis, I think the plant's going to cover that quite well. So I think this is going to look really awesome. I'm really excited about this. I was going to say as well, when I was looking on their website, they do have trellises that you can actually mount to the wall. So if you want to have a plant climbing up the wall, it looks amazing. I'll pop some pictures in, but I'm thinking in my new place, I might potentially get some of my other plants climbing up the wall with these trellises because I just think it kind of makes it look really arty and cool. And obviously it just helps your plants to climb upwards. Okay. Right. How should I get this to stay in? I think actually, luckily it kind of fits perfectly through two of the holes at the bottom there. So I think if I kind of pack a bit of soil around the bottom, it should more or less stay upright by itself, which is pretty cool. I know I did ask you guys to send in, as always, some questions on Instagram to answer. And one of them was, how do you get moss poles to stay upright? And I guess it's kind of the same principle for trellises. A lot of the time, if I've got a very heavy moss pole, or I mean, maybe not in this case, but I guess I could, a heavy trellis. What I tend to do is I'll usually just either kind of make a hole at the back of the pot there and tie it to the back of the pot so that it doesn't, it doesn't go either way. I'll put an example in, I'll put a clip in of a plant that I've done that for. And then the other thing is just kind of leaning your pole up against a wall or finding another surface for it to lean up against. So it's just kind of got a little bit more support. So that's, that's what I personally do and it's worked fairly well. And as I say, I'm not sure I'm actually going to need to do it with this. It seems to be, seems to be standing pretty well on its own, but I'll get the plant onto it and I will tie the plant in place and then we'll see if I need to do that. Okay, so it is all potted and now I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna tie some sections of it to the trellis to kind of help it, help it go upwards instead of just across to the side, because as you can see at the moment, it's just a little bit all over the place. And because I've only got very thick kind of garden twine, I'm just gonna unravel it a little bit like that and just take little sections just because otherwise I think it's going to be too thick and this way I can get more out of one strand. Okay, so I'm kind of using the camera as my mirror right now. And I guess what you could do as well, like if I was to start this plant on the trellis like this and then I wanted it to continue to climb, I could get the ones that fix onto the wall to kind of go above it so that I could just kind of keep it, keep it going upwards. Maybe I'll do that, I don't know, I'll see. This is immediately just making this plant look so much bigger as well. I think it's just been lent over to one side and yeah, like it looks so much bigger already. Now I've got a bit here that I'm kind of thinking I might just try and tuck into the trellis instead of actually tying. Will that work? Or do I just let it be free? No, I take that back, I'm gonna tie it. And obviously using a trellis as opposed to a moss pole or something like that doesn't really offer much to the aerial roots but I think from what I know about begonia, as I say I'm not a big begonia person but I've never seen a begonia growing on a moss pole I don't think, they don't have particularly large aerial roots or anything like that so I think just a little bit of upward guidance is probably what's gonna do it. Do good things for it and it seems pretty secure to be honest, like I really did think that maybe I'd have to do some more tying of the trellis but I think I'm happy with that. I'll move back so you can kind of see, see it a bit better but how beautiful does that look? It's so unusual but yeah, it really helps it to kind of stay more upright. I feel like I can appreciate this plant a bit better now, like before it was just kind of all over the place but I think that looks absolutely gorgeous. Yay, amazing! Okay right, let's do, let's do the next one. So with this one, this one's smaller and as I say I'm kind of thinking maybe a little Hoya or something like that on there. I have actually got my Hoya parasitica black margin which has been needing something to climb for ages and I'm not sure if this is going to be too small for it, it might be. Let's just have a look. Yeah I think it's going to be a little bit too big and I would take some cuttings of this plant but I do really like the way it's growing at the moment so I don't think I can bring myself to do that yet but what I am thinking is I've got my Hoya ysei tricolour in a hanging pot over here and that one's growth isn't quite as spread so I'm kind of thinking that one might work. Yeah I feel like also the shape of its leaves also kind is quite similar to that trellis and I feel like it would work quite well. Cool, I think this is the one I'm going to do so I'm actually thinking obviously I'll take a look at the roots first but if I go and give this pot a clean out, the one that I've literally just un-potted the begonia from, I might be able to use the same pot and I think that would look really nice. Right, let's take a look at the roots. This one has not been watered in a while so it might be a bit more difficult but we'll see. Oh yeah that soil is very dry. The annoying thing about trying to repot a plant that you haven't watered for a while is the root system is just so much more fragile like it doesn't have as much flexibility so breaking it is a much higher risk so I'm hoping I can just kind of, it does seem to be falling away quite easily so maybe I can just kind of pat and hope that all the excess soil comes off. And just holding it up to that trellis even like that I think this is going to look really beautiful. I honestly didn't think about this plant when I was kind of looking at them and like before I filmed this I was like oh what should I do and I thought about the Hoya parasitica black margin but I didn't even consider this one. Cool so that is the root system on this plant as you can see it's very dehydrated at the moment and I will be giving this plant a really good water after I've repotted it but it's also been, it's been in this pot for a very long time and is definitely ready for a size up so I think this pot's actually going to do it pretty well. I'm just going to go give it a clean out and then we can put it up. Right okay it's not perfect but it will do so again I guess I'm just going to pop the trellis in the same way I did the other one and then we can tie it on and get it climbing. Because of the yeti's leaves it's really quite hard to pot up like they keep wanting to come back down so again I feel like trellising it is going to do really good things for it and hopefully get it growing really nicely giving me some lovely mature growth. I do really love this plant but it's one that kind of falls under my radar quite a lot I think because it is quite a slow grower and I've had it in hangar for a long time so it just hasn't kind of been at the forefront of my mind but I feel like now now it's going to look really gorgeous. I'm hoping that yeah it gives me some lovely growth and I'll be able to kind of appreciate it a little bit more and I'm going to go ahead and do the same thing again tie it onto the trellis but I feel like this might take a little bit longer so I'm gonna go through a couple of questions. So the first one is how are you how are you really doing? Yeah so I mean to be honest on the whole at the moment I would say I'm doing fairly I'm doing fairly well I'm I'm pretty happy I think just because I have been so so so busy this last month I kind of haven't had a lot of time to kind of tune into myself that much if that makes sense like I obviously went on the surprise holiday that my friend took me on which was amazing but since then I haven't had a single weekend at home and weeks have just been a bit crazy. I know I always say I use my plant care as a way of really kind of tuning into myself and grounding myself and to be honest I as I said at the beginning of this video I've massively fallen behind and I think I've definitely neglected my plants and neglected myself a bit recently so having today to just kind of get on with some things and chat to you guys and feel like I'm getting some stuff done is a really really really nice feeling because yeah I guess if anything I've just been a little bit stressed I mean I'm going through the process of moving and I know some of you have asked why it's taking such a long time so the property that I'm going to be moving to I'm buying and here in the UK anyway the process of buying is never straightforward never simple especially at the moment with all of the kind of weird financial things going on and all that sort of stuff it's just a bit kind of up in the air and meanwhile while I'm living back at home at my mum's as I've said in so many of my videos I'm so grateful to be able to do it but it does just mean that any time I want to be in this room either filming or just doing planty things or catching up grounding myself whatever it is it does just have to be very much works around what works for everyone which a lot of the time seeing as my mum works from home a lot of the time herself nowadays it's just often the case of being like right okay you use the room for 20 minutes then I'll use it for half an hour and da da da da and it's it's not always the nicest feeling to have to structure your time around other people when you're looking to kind of just do some stuff yourself if that makes any sense at all and I do know that living back at home I'm so lucky to be able to be here as I've said and I do know that that is just how it goes like it's just like having flatmates again which I've done many a time in my life and although most of the time we do just kind of get on with it and it works fairly well I'm just getting to the stage more and more as my moving date approaches that I'm just like oh my god I need my own space I really need my own space and I sometimes get the feeling as well that I'm kind of because I am doing YouTube and content creating and stuff like that more full time nowadays I feel like I kind of cut myself short a lot of the time and I put out things that sometimes I'm a bit like oh it's not like I don't feel like it's my best work or my best video or anything like that and that is it's so frustrating I'm sure like any of you I mean I'm sure all of you know putting out something that you don't feel like is a good representation of what you're capable of producing is just a very disheartening feeling so not that I feel that all the time but now that change is kind of looming that is something that I have been feeling more and more and I'm just so eager to to move now and to kind of start doing things in a way that works for me and being able to be a little bit more of a control freak I guess with all of it and kind of have stuff more within my control I'm very excited about that but aside from that to be honest yeah I'm really good I think things in my life are kind of they're finding a nice balance because as I say before before I went on holiday I hadn't really been out at a weekend for about six eight weeks I am such such a recluse a lot of the time and I do love that like I kind of love just being able to stay home spend time with my plants and just focus on focus on things for me but it's been really really nice I've done some really fun things and got to meet up with some friends that I haven't seen in a very long time and it's definitely just about balance isn't it and that is one thing oh my goodness that is one thing that throughout my life I've struggled with so much I can be literally the worst person at finding balance because I'm slightly obsessive like if you if you hadn't noticed I'm slightly obsessive and I will find something like plant care for example and I would just want to absorb myself fully in that and then that kind of just takes over and plant care is just like one example of loads of things but I often find it really hard to kind of think okay well let's allow a bit of time for this and then a bit of time for that I'm kind of like all or nothing so that is something that I continue to work on and sometimes feel like I'm getting better at but it's it's a work in progress for me but yeah very long answer to a very short question I am good thank you how are you guys doing how is how's everything been with you guys I feel like I haven't done a report and chat for absolutely ages and it's always really nice to see how you guys are doing in the comments what you've been up to I know I am I could be so bad at getting back to comments nowadays I just I kind of have to prioritize other things and then if I've got time then I'll get back to everything but I do read all of the lovely comments that you leave and it makes me so happy to read them so do let me know how you're doing and what you've been up to have any of you got any exciting plants recently or have any exciting planty updates or anything like that do let me know so with this hoia it hasn't actually started to tendril much at all yet it's just kind of it's giving me quite full growth which is lovely but if it did start to tendril I could obviously just kind of wrap its spines round the trellis and hopefully again it would start to encourage some lovely big growth and more leafage so more leafage okay I think that's done and you know what I absolutely love that how beautiful does that look if you look at the plant before and after like I feel like this just kind of accentuates it so much more and it's so unusual but I just think that looks absolutely beautiful and thank you again so much to Trelly for firstly sending me these beautiful trellises and for sponsoring this video I highly highly highly recommend them they are a fantastic small business with a big focus on sustainability which is something that we should all be very interested in at the moment so yeah and their trellises just look beautiful so I'm I'm absolutely chuffed with them as I say I will leave all the details for Trelleaf down in the description box below if anybody is interested but yeah right I'm gonna have a little clear up because as usual I've made a big mess and then I will see what needs doing next okay this is one that I've been putting off for a long time this is my Syngonia Mojito and as you can see she literally lifts out of this pot she is she is ridiculously root bound and she needs repotting and she also really needs a moss pole and I wasn't planning on making a moss pole in this video but I think I might just have to throw a very quick one together because she really needs it so yeah I'm gonna do that I'm just gonna go get everything that I need for it and hope I've got enough stuff so I think this should all do the job I was gonna say I probably won't talk through all the details of how I'm doing the moss pole in this video but I did make a specific video on it so I will link that in the description box below if anybody's interested but right okay let's have a look let's have a look at her I can literally just lift her out the pot like that yeah so I feel like if I just cut straight up that bit of mesh there then that's probably gonna do her for now I can also extend the moss pole fairly easily if I need to so I think I'm just gonna I'm just gonna use the length that's already there also as usual absolutely typical as soon as I've started filming drilling has started outside and it's just too hot to close the doors and windows today it's really really warm so I am very sorry if you can hear that someone asked how do you plan to move all of your plants without beating them up I'm moving to and I'm worried about it I'm worried about it too to be completely honest I think I think I mean I'm actually not moving far I'm only moving about 45 minutes down the road and so a lot of them I will be able to transport myself one of my best friends has a van and so he's very kindly offered to help me I'm gonna get as many as I can into his van I think the cardboard rolling technique is a very good one if you possibly can for plants I made a video way back when when I started youtube called packaging plants for shipping or something like that and I kind of showed how you can roll your plants up to kind of make sure that none of their foliage gets damaged and particularly for some of my rare plants and my my very spiky plants like my big euphorbia for example I think I will be using that method just so that even if there were to be any knocks or anything like that in transit then hopefully it will mean that nothing gets damaged I think as well just any that are particularly special to me and I'm especially worried about like for example my white princess just here I adore that plant and she is possibly the most breakable plant in my collection so I'm kind of thinking I might try and have her on my lap so that I can literally be with her for the whole journey and make sure that nothing happens to her but I mean god I know a lot of people especially if you're not moving close by to where you are at the moment will have to get in removal vans and stuff like that and I think oh it's something that would scare me so much I'm just such a control freak and I would find it so difficult to let anybody else kind of take control of my plants anyway especially when they're so vulnerable on a move but I think if you don't have any other choice but to do that you just need to be very very clear to the people that are moving your plants that plants are incredibly fragile they're very sentimental they can be very expensive and just kind of tell them to be as careful as they possibly can I know that's not a complete solution but that is definitely what I'd be doing if anyone else was moving my plants and I think with a lot of my smaller ones I'm going to be getting them into boxes so that I can just kind of keep them upright and again if boxes knock into each other hopefully they should be fine also just to kind of like pads your plants out and make sure that they don't get damaged or anything like that you can get this I'm not actually sure what it's called I'll um I'll have a look and I'll put the name on the screen but it's kind of just like the stuffing that goes inside pillows it's like or inside a teddy bear or something like that just really really soft and fluffy I know Aroid Market and Green Spaces ID both use it to package their plants and it is just absolutely fantastic because it's kind of like bubble wrap in the sense that it gives a little bit of protection but it also isn't harsh enough to kind of I don't know rip a hole in your plants or anything like that like for example if you were to use cardboard then maybe that wouldn't be quite so good but I think I'm definitely going to be investing in some of that and using that to kind of help my plants a bit but yeah I've already kind of said when I when I do move my plants are my main priority they're the thing that I want to get in first because I know a lot of people would probably say furniture I just want to make sure that my plants are there safely and I kind of want to build my home around my plants so I feel like seeing as they are probably the most obviously Yoli but the most important thing to me in terms of setting up when I first get in I think I will probably move them first so yeah I will definitely be vlogging the whole moving experience and taking you guys with me and hopefully if anything goes I hope it won't but if anything goes really really wrong for me then you can learn from my mistakes and if anything works particularly well again hopefully that will help too the next question is if money was no object which plant or plants would you like to add to your collection oh that's a really really hard one I did make a video fairly recently about my wishlist plants and I know some of them on there are super expensive but I know would bring me a lot of joy so yeah I mean I think in just kind of general I think I would say probably more unusual anthuriums like I love anthurium so much but I'm also getting so interested in cross-pollination kind of like merging two different types of anthurium or actually I've spoken a little bit about it with philodendron but the flowers haven't actually popped yet so I haven't actually had first-hand experience in doing that yet but yeah I'm just really interested in creating hybrid plants so I think probably I mean anthurium luxurians is one that is kind of top of my list I've wanted that plant for absolutely ages I have acquired a few amazing anthuriums recently like the warakwianum the sp lemon lemon I still don't know how you say that lemon limon I don't know but I'm very excited about them and I'm hoping at some point further down the line maybe I could try and cross-pollinate them I've got quite a few different types of anthurium now so I'd be very interested to give that a go but yeah I think right now I would probably go I would probably go with some more anthuriums but again ask me tomorrow and that might have changed what about you guys if you if literally money was no object and you could get any plant you wanted or let's say top five plants what would you get right now today in this moment there's another question here that I've kind of touched on before but I will happily happily talk about again and someone said I've been looking into getting a rescue dog any advice for anybody that might be new here Yoli my dog my pride and joy love of my life is a rescue dog she's a greek rescue and I've grown up with rescue dogs I've had them pretty much all of my life and any advice I think the main advice would just be to kind of be prepared for the fact that it's probably not going to be that easy I mean I say that you can you can strike gold and get the most incredible rescue dog that doesn't come with much baggage but in my experience all of the dogs that I've had have been I mean I don't want to say difficult but have been perhaps more difficult to train and look after and all that sort of stuff than they would do if you were to go to a breeder and get a puppy or something like that I mean I do think it is the most wonderful thing to do and rescuing any animal I think is so rewarding but as cliche as it might sound you do just have to be really really prepared for the fact that it probably won't be easy or that straightforward I mean taking Yoli as a prime example she has huge separation anxiety she hates being away from me pretty much all the time she will have to be in the same room as me I can't leave her for more than an hour at a time because she gets so distressed and because she has also come with a host of other issues such as being incredibly bad on the whole with other dogs not liking some men being very bad with cats all this sort of stuff that is very hard to train out of a dog once they're very set in their ways I did get Yoli as a slightly older dog but I know some people can experience this with rescue puppies as well it just means that things aren't always that straightforward like for example when I go away I'm really really lucky that I have now found some people that are brilliant with Yoli and they kind of know her very well and they will look after her and she's really happy with them but you can't just kind of call up a dog walker and be like can you come and walk my dog today while I'm out or can you come and look after my dog because if your dog has issues then that might not be like there's a lot of people that I just personally wouldn't trust with Yoli because like anyone that I've ever approached I've kind of said please please have experience with rescue dogs and be prepared for the fact that she is it's not always the easiest dog to handle and I know that I know like when I've spoken about it before as well I've said that might sound like I'm being incredibly negative but I think people can kind of be drawn in by the idea that getting a rescue dog is just the best thing to do and they would love to do it without actually kind of knowing the reality of it a lot of the time and I'm sure this goes for a lot of other rescue animals as well but for me as I say I've got a lot of experience with rescue dogs and if you genuinely do have the time and energy and commitment to dedicate to it and you're not under any illusion that you've seen this cute little puppy and therefore everything will be fine then then I would say go for it I would say make sure you really do have the time to commit to it but it is the most rewarding thing in the world and I feel like I will probably always rescue I mean I say that it would actually be quite nice one of these days to have a dog that does get along with other dogs and is easy to train and all that sort of stuff but at the same time I wouldn't change yearly for a second she is just fantastic and I am so happy that I have been able to offer her a better life than she had before so yeah and also the other thing to say is that you often won't know the full picture of an animal until you actually get it for example like we were told that Yoli was good with cats and we were told that she was just a really good girl she loved other dogs and I'm sure like maybe in the environment she was in there maybe she did but I definitely didn't get kind of like a full accurate overview of her and I think this is just because the lovely people working at the rescue charity that she came from who are absolutely fantastic honestly cannot rave about them enough they're amazing but I think because they were looking after so many dogs they didn't really they weren't able to take the time to really get to know each individual dog in the way that you do when you're their owner if that makes sense so hope for the best prepare for the worst is what I would say but also as I say yeah just know that it is it is the most rewarding thing in the world and if you are able to do it then then absolutely do it what I do now as well whenever I make a moss pole is I'll always just kind of leave the top bit a little bit open so firstly it makes it so much easier if you do come to extend the moss pole if your plant outgrows it but also I'm using my cup technique my cup method for pretty much every single one of my moss poles at the moment which I have spoken about in other videos as well but it's basically just can you see that cup just there balanced on top of that moss pole it's basically just using a plastic cup or a bottle or a container making a little hole in the top of it and kind of using a drip feed system so that your moss poles can constantly stay hydrated and it's just so much easier than having to water them and trying to rehydrate them every time like I just fill my moss pole cups up pretty much every day and it has taken so much time off my plant care routine and I think all of my plants on poles are in general a lot happier now so yeah I am using that for all of my moss poles and I think we'll definitely continue to do that so I just take that into consideration when I am cable tying my poles I literally can't stop looking at the Hoya wetii on the trellis like I know I'm being really sad but I just think that looks absolutely amazing like I feel like I can appreciate that plant so much more now okay right I'm gonna stop getting distracted and crack on with this because I've got a lot to do I think as well I've spoken in terms of like plant burnout and stuff like that before and although plant care in itself a lot of the time just as I say is something that I really really enjoy and most of the time doesn't feel very overwhelming I think because I haven't been at home as much as I usually am and things have built up I've been dealing with pests a lot and plants have started to go downhill it has just recently got to the point where I'm like oh my god this does feel a little bit overwhelming and I know if I just had a couple of completely free days I could just go through and do everything that I needed to do and feel on top again then I would just get back to the place of loving it but I think this is why it's a really good idea when you do get into plant care to not dive in and build a complete jungle of plants initially I think it's a really good thing to kind of build it up over time so that you get an idea of how much care each plant requires because some of mine some of my new things doing to them like every other day others I can leave for weeks on end and not worry about but in general there will usually be things that need doing to plants most days at my house because because I've got so many of them and because of the heat and the time of year all that sort of stuff and so yeah I have had a few mornings recently where I would usually wake up and just go oh I'm gonna spend an hour with my plants and I've kind of gone oh my god there's so much to do it just feels like an added pressure and that's a horrible feeling I mean I know it does just get like that and I'm sure I'm sure so many of you can relate to that and I think that's where plant burnout comes from a lot of the time where you can just see plants starting to go downhill know that there's so much to do and just kind of think oh my god where do I start what do I prioritize and yeah that's why it actually feels really good to be making this video right now it feels really good to be like okay I'm getting things done that have been on my list for a while I have still got a lot of pest treating to do I am battling majorly with spider mites at the moment and I'm doing lots of manual treatments that's kind of helping to keep them keep them kind of under control but they are still coming back and I think that's just because I had so many plants that were affected by them and oh my goodness I hate spider mites I mean who likes them but they are definitely my worst pest because they are just so hard to permanently get rid of so I did try predatory mites a while ago and I didn't get on that well with them to be honest I don't know if it's just because the infestation was so bad or I didn't replace the sachets enough but I have actually placed an order for a massive tub of predatory mites and I'm gonna give it another go because I'd really like to move away from chemical pest treatments and do things a little bit more naturally to kind of help keep the climate of my plants kind of as as natural as I possibly can so I will let you know again how I get on with them and I'm really really hoping that it will do good things this time and I will have success but yeah as I say my last experience with them just wasn't wasn't what I was expecting and I know loads of other people have said that they have had really positive experiences so I'll keep you updated and I'll let you know how it goes fingers crossed but the worst one at the moment is my alocasia portadora the one that used to be behind me for all of my videos my massive massive one she has had spider mites for ages now and I've treated her so many times she'll be fine for kind of five six weeks I'll do several treatments within that period and then I'll think everything's fine and then they will just come back again in force and I'm like oh my god I am so tired of just pest treating the plant constantly so the predatory mites are mainly gonna be for her to start with and then we will see we'll see how we get on maybe I will if I have success move to doing it for more of my plants but as I say I will absolutely keep you updated um okay so again the moss pole tipping thing this is quite a heavy moss pole for the size pot that I'm going to use just because as you can see the root system here isn't massive um I could potentially go up one more pot size but I just don't want to overwhelm the roots and as I say the root system is actually quite small so I think I'm going to start with this and if it does tip then I think I'm probably just going to have to find something to kind of lean this up against but I'm just going to kind I'm going to put some soil at the bottom and I'm gonna just try and get it as sturdy as I possibly can and hopefully that'll mean then I don't have to tie it at all okay already I feel like actually that might be fine I'm letting go and it's good and the soil is not hydrated yet so that's that's a positive thing so again because this is so dry I can literally just kind of brush the soil away from the roots yeah this one's been needing some TLC for a very long time so hopefully this is going to do very good things for it thank you teddy that's my mom's dog thank you and as you can see this plant has got some really insane aerial roots so I'm just going to try and encourage all of them into the damp moss and hopefully it'll start to grip on form its own little root system and the plant will be very happy and I think I am just going to tie it in place in a couple of areas again just to kind of help encourage the aerial roots to start with and then hopefully once it's been on there a few weeks it'll kind of grip on by itself and I won't have to worry about it too much my god that's a low blow someone asked what plants are you planning on taking to the plant swap so if you guys watched my video my plant swap video from a while back there is another plant swap happening again at the end of October and I am so excited about it I know that they have technically at the moment sold out of tickets but they will be releasing some more so again I'll put all the details for that in the description box below it's in London and it would be lovely to see some of you guys there but currently I don't know what plants I'm going to be taking I love trading plants but I'm always so bad at knowing which of my own plants to cut because I'm way too precious I'm thinking probably some syngoniums if my antherium berries are ready by then I might be taking some antherium berries or small antherium seedlings I think as well this time I'm probably going to take some actual full plants instead of just cuttings because I have got a few in my collection that I'm I'm not 100% in love with anymore and I think would do better in someone else's home so uh maybe my philodendron golden dragon maybe my philodendron squamiferum there's a few so yeah I'm I'm really excited about it but currently I mean some hoyas as well I'm definitely definitely ready to chop some of my hoyas and I've got some lovely hoyas now so I will be making a video on all of the plants I decide to take but for now those are the ones that are kind of at the forefront of my mind and I will let you know when I've finalized my decisions but as I say I'll put all the details for the plant swap down below and if anybody wants to or is able to come then it would be it would be so nice to meet some of you there I met some lovely people at the plant swap last time and it's just such a fun evening like you can just have a drink walk around see some amazing plants get some amazing plants meet some great people it is it's literally my idea of heaven it's the best the best evening ever so yeah I'm very excited okay so this plant is really quite seriously dehydrated at the moment hence why she's a bit floppy but I think once she has a good water and adjusts to life on her pole she's going to be a lot happier I just think like her leaves are so beautiful I love the variegation on them and this is actually a plant that I'm pretty sure I got as a cutting at the last plant swap so yeah she's done fairly well she's just been a little bit neglected recently so I'll keep you updated with her and I hope that she'll be looking lovely and full and healthy again soon but yeah right what's next okay this one's one that I think is pretty desperate and I know some of you guys said when I did report it could I make a video on it so here is the section of the video this is my pothos marble queen and this plant has been in the same pot since I got it and that has been a while and I know these ones do get root bound very quickly and without even looking at her roots because she's in a hanging pot at the moment without even looking at the roots I can tell she needs to report just because her leaves are actually getting smaller as she grows and not bigger meaning that she's very likely not absorbing all the nutrients she needs so I think these are going to be some pretty crazy roots but let's have a look okay yeah even just lifting her out of the hanging pot I can see so many roots coming out of the bottom look at that this might even be a cutting the pot off her job just shovel the mess over here so with pothos plants a lot of the time when I report them I don't actually mess with the root system that much I have reported some other pothos plants in other videos and I don't tend to break up the root system much at all just because for some reason although yeah she's properly stuck in there although they're really really hardy plants and they are very easy to care for the only time that I've had struggles with them has been after repotting and in my experience as well it does tend to spread quite quickly by itself so yeah she's she's very very very root bound so I'm not going to do a full break up the root system I think I'm just going to kind of give them a squeeze again I did water this plant either yesterday or the day before so she's fairly hydrated so it does just make it a little bit easier but I'm just going to kind of very gently untangle the main kind of thick roots and then not bother as much as I might do with some of my other plants with the kind of more spindly ones just because I don't want to cause her any issues. The next question is do you use tap water to water your plants? So short answer yes I do most of the time I know when I first when I first started on YouTube and I was really kind of trying to get everything right I was always like no use rain water or distilled water and to be honest the more that time's gone on I still do that for some of my plants where I can like for example my calatheas that are really sensitive to chemicals and minerals and tap water but for the majority of my plants I do just use tap water and if they are very sensitive plants or I've been having issues with them I'll usually just leave my tap water out for like 24 hours like I'll fill my watering can leave it to one side a lot of things like chlorine then tend to evaporate and touch wood all of my plants have been fine with that it does also really depend on whereabouts you live so for example if you live in a really big city and the water is a lot harder a lot more I wouldn't say polluted but like has got a lot more preservatives and chemicals in it then these are the things that can potentially cause damage to your plants but I think it just kind of comes with trial and error I would say if you've got a plant for example a very rare plant from very specialized greenhouse conditions then maybe ease them into your way of watering quite slowly so maybe start with distilled water or rain water and then kind of gradually dilute that more with tap water as time goes on to kind of build up their tolerance a bit again I've said it before but if you do get a new plant particularly a rare plant or one that you're a bit worried about it's absolutely fine to contact the seller and ask about its conditions previously what it was being fed before what kind of water it was receiving then and just kind of kind of go from there it's just all part of acclimating your plants but that is what I personally do and on the whole I haven't really as I say I haven't really had any issues with that but if you are in the position to be able to use rain water a lot like if you've got a water butt or something like that or if you've somehow just got very easy access to distilled water then yeah your plants are absolutely going to love that okay so as you can see I really haven't disrupted the root system that much and there is still some soil in there but I think I've done just enough for it to be able to kind of extend its roots get it happy in its new environment but also not risk doing any damage to the plant itself and as I say I don't really do this for any other plants apart from pothos plants just they can just be a bit funny about being repotted for some reason so oh I lost a leaf as well but yeah so I think I'm just going to leave it at that and what plant pot shall I put it into? I kind of feel like I might size up a fair bit and I know I always say be really careful of doing this but I think just knowing how quickly they grow and knowing how quickly their roots kind of go in a new environment I think I'm gonna I think I'm gonna pot it in this I think this is probably maybe pot size 16 or something like that just from looking at it but yeah cool that's what I'm gonna do anything that most plant people say you should slash shouldn't do that you don't agree with oh that's an interesting question I mean I think I think so many planty people have different ways of doing things anyway I don't think there's ever like an absolutely should or shouldn't I guess I guess maybe one of the main things because I know a lot of people are quite kind of like controversial in their controversial like think different things about misting I do mist a lot of my plants and I know a lot of people don't agree with doing that and kind of say it has no benefits but I I do it kind of mainly one of the reasons I do it is as a pest preventative measure to help keep the leaves clean I don't do this for my velvety plants just because it can increase the risk of fungal infection and stuff like that but for epiphytic plants for example such as Hoyas like so basically and I said this on one of my patreon videos recently but Hoyas because they're epiphytic it basically means in nature they will essentially grow off other plants they won't grow directly into soil or it's rare for them to grow directly in soil and a lot of the moisture that they receive actually comes from the air like technically in theory you don't actually have to water them if they're receiving all of the moisture they need from like the moss that they're growing off or from the environment that they're in if that makes sense so although it's not like a complete fix to humidity or anything like that I do use humidifiers and they keep my plants really happy I do also mist particularly my Hoyas but all of my epiphytic plants a lot just because it means that they can absorb water a lot easier if that makes sense and again I gave this as an example on patreon but like think of think of a moss pole for example if you were to just water a dry moss pole then chances are your water would just bounce straight off it and not a lot would be absorbed whereas if you mist it first and then you go ahead and water it then it's going to absorb the moisture a lot better if that makes sense so I kind of just use that use that with a lot of my plants and it seems to keep them really happy but I don't know if that's the thing that people say you shouldn't do I just know a lot of plantsy people don't mist at all that would probably be one the other thing that I know you're technically not supposed to do but I do do from time to time is water your plants at night time a lot of people say and it is to be fair it is kind of true if you water your plants when there's not any daylight then your plants can't absorb the water as much often if you water them at night time the temperature drops and it can make your plants more susceptible to things like root rot but to be completely honest when you've got a lot of plants and you can't always fit all of your watering into a day if I know that the temperature is like for example I probably wouldn't do this in winter but if I know that the temperature is not going to drop crazily overnight then I do water a lot of them at night time the same kind of goes for things like repotting and as you guys will know if you watch my other videos I do do quite a lot of kind of like late night plant chores late night repot with me all that sort of stuff because there's not enough hours in the day and I feel like I have never had a bad experience with that so although it technically goes against what you're meant to do I just go ahead and do it but yeah I would say those are probably the main ones if I think of any more I'll let you know but I don't think there's anything massively controversial that I do with my plants if any of you have anything that you do that you feel like works for you but you're not meant to do or other people would say differently then again let me know in the comments I'd be really interested to know as I say I think plant care is just so much trial and error and things that work for some people aren't going to work for others because of home environments climates all that sort of stuff so yeah that's an interesting question and I'll be very interested to know what you guys think okay fabulous I think she's done and I think she's going to be very happy like that already like I think sometimes when you repot a plant into a bigger pot although they obviously haven't grown anymore in the time that you've done it they do just immediately look so much fuller and healthier and I think this is going to do really good things for her so again I'll keep you updated I'm really hoping that she'll be fine after the repot and there won't be any issues I don't see why there would be but these plants can just be really weird about repotting so yeah keep your fingers crossed for me and then I think the last thing I'm going to do in this video is just repot my Syngonium Wenslandii and this one again similar to my Mahiso has been needing a repot for such a long time and as you can see it's now starting to yellow and its roots are coming out at the bottom and it's not very happy at all this is another one that could probably do with a moss pole but I think for now I might just stake it with the begonia stake that I used before because I don't have enough moss to make another moss pole right now so yeah again this might be maybe a pot that needs cutting off because it has properly grown through but let's have a look it's another one as well that is very very dry as I say I have massively fallen behind on things and whoa oh my god look at that spiral of roots can you see that that's crazy but yeah it feels really really good to finally be getting some stuff done and I know I'm not going to get through all of it today I know it's probably going to take me at least a few days to properly get on top of so you will probably be seeing a lot more repotting chatty videos if anyone's got any questions that you want me to kind of go through and answer then I usually put a post on my Instagram story for it but if you comment them down below then I will read them as well and happily answer some of them in the video so let me know but yeah oh my goodness these roots are crazy and I do feel so bad that I've left it so long to repot this plant this is another one that I got at the plant swap and I absolutely love it I think it's gorgeous and should have been dealt with sooner but these things happen especially when you've got lots of plants there's always one or two that get missed and I'm so sorry plant you were missed its roots are so dry as well which again as I say just makes it a little bit harder but we're getting there whoa yeah check out those roots they are absolutely insane I feel so bad they've been crammed into such a small pot for such a long time I feel like this plant is really gonna flourish when I put it in a bigger pot because yeah again similar to the pothos marble queen you can see the top of the growth there is just not as big as it should be if you look at the leaves down here they should be getting bigger and more mature as they grow and because they're not it is because they are malnourished and I haven't taken enough care of this plant what's your funniest planty moment my funniest planty moments I don't know I'm trying to think okay I have one that was not funny at the time at all but I guess in hindsight is quite funny so back when I had my shop open I had this amazing plant room that my ex had built for me and I had all of my plants and they're kind of stacked up very high on shelves and whenever I used to get a stock order in of loads and loads and loads of plants I'd bring them all to the middle of the room and I would put them on the shelves take all the labels off do all that sort of stuff and I think it was a calathea I can't remember the exact type of plant but anyway it was up on a really high shelf and I realized that I had a big label across the front of the pot that I'd missed and I hadn't taken off so I reached up to get it and I started peeling the label off and I don't know what happened but instead of actually just peeling the label off I somehow managed to take the whole pot and I think as I was pulling the label quite hard it kind of went with quite a lot of force and it flung across the room knocked off a load of stuff that was on the shelves including loads of seedlings which I was so annoyed about and yeah it created an absolute drama in that room meaning that I had to spend about an hour clearing up and repotting stuff and all that sort of stuff and yeah I mean it doesn't maybe sound that funny and I was devastated at the time I was so annoyed but I feel like if there'd been a camera in there when that happened it would have been quite funny so maybe that's my funniest planty moment I don't know do you have one do any of you have a funniest planty moment or like a drama that at the time was not funny but now in hindsight is if so do let me know I love that sort of thing I've also been thinking as well that at some point soon I would really like to do another houseplant confessions video because again my packaging plants for shipping video that I did when I literally just started YouTube I kind of mixed in some houseplant confessions with that and they were so funny and I feel like that's definitely something I would love to get into a repotting chat so again if anyone's got some houseplant confessions that you wouldn't mind sharing you can either comment them down below or if you would like it to be anonymous feel free to send me a message on Instagram but also keep an eye on my Instagram story if you're on Instagram and I will post I'll post some houseplanty confession things there at some point and we can we can go through them in a video because it's just some light-hearted light-hearted planty fun and I really enjoyed doing it last time so yeah I think I will definitely definitely make another one of those soon someone said not planty but what are the pendants on your necklaces so I mean it's not actually that interesting I've been asked this before so this little one here this is one that I've worn pretty much every single day since I was 18 years old a friend who I'm actually I've drifted from I'm not friends with anymore but a friend that I knew from school and college she gave it to me for my 18th birthday and I just really love it I think it's some sort of Celtic knot I'm not quite sure I'll put a clip of it in if that's not clear but if any of you know if it's got like a meaning or anything like that then do let me know but I just really like it and I've literally not taken it off since then and then the other one is a hand and this is one that my old flatmate gave to me and again I just absolutely love it I used to wear it as kind of like a little choker necklace and I just yeah I never take them off I literally never take them off and I feel really naked when I don't wear them nowadays like back when I was acting if I ever had to take them off for an acting job or something like that I'd always be like ah it's kind of like an insecurity thing as well like when people play with their hair or something like that my thing whenever I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable is always to just like play with my necklace bite my necklace but I really like them so thank you for asking and I wish I could give you a more interesting story than that but sadly there is not one. What's your favourite low maintenance plant right now and what's one high maintenance plant that's totally worth it in your opinion? So I've got to be honest I've got quite a few low maintenance plants that I absolutely love but I think probably top of my list at the moment would be my Thaumatophyllum Bipinatifidum which I know has the funniest name in the world it's one of the plants that I found in skip one of the ones that I rehabbed and is now doing really well and I literally haven't done anything to it whatsoever I water it maybe once every two weeks or something like that and it's growing really nicely for me it requires very little care and I think it's great oh I've got soil on my hands and like oh I don't know if anyone else gets it you have soil in your hands and then it goes really dry and then you touch something dry like string and it's like yeah not enjoying that feeling at all but yeah Thaumatophyllum Bipinatifidum and then I mean I've got quite a few as I say pothos plants really low maintenance snake plants ridiculously low maintenance I have got a snake plant down in my room that I don't think has been watered for about four months which I know I probably shouldn't be saying because I know that's bad plant parenting but it's still alive and it still looks fairly healthy so so yeah those are probably put the stake in the wrong way up um but yeah those are probably the top low maintenance ones at the moment and then a high maintenance plant that is totally worth it I guess okay I guess I would probably say I've got two one would be my Calathea Orbifolia I mean all of my Calatheas are obviously slightly more high maintenance than my others because they like their soil consistently moist and they can be very dramatic and things can go downhill very quickly if you don't kind of look after them properly so yeah Calathea Orbifolia because I think it's such a beautiful plant and I love caring for it and then probably another top one I know you only asked for one but I'm indecisive so I'm going to give you two of each category the other one is probably my blue star fern that I got from Emma in our little plant swappy video that we made and it's just I love it so much again it needs its soil to be fairly moist it needs really high humidity fairly low light doesn't cope well in direct sun it's quite a fossy plant but it's a plant that I I just really love it's bringing me a lot of joy I love its colour I think that would be I think that would be my that and the Orbifolia would be my top ones if I had to say right now cool okay I know the stake is the wrong way up and I know that it should technically be a moss pole but again at least the roots are going to be happy and hopefully it will be able to give me some lovely growth now that it's got a bit more space a bit more wiggle room and then I'll be able to get it on a moss pole fairly soon when I've got some more moss but yeah I have as I say I have still got quite a lot of planty things to do but I think I'm going to split this video up into several videos because I've got so much to do and I'm not allowed to use this room all day because other people need to use the space but I'm really happy with what I've got done in this video I feel like it is a little bit of pressure off I hope if you've been doing planty things along with this video you have also got lots done but yeah I really hope you enjoyed this video if you did please make sure to give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel have a nice day and I'll see you in the next video