Simple Life Matters

Tetrasperma Aurea was priced at P500,000 during the pandemic. Now you can buy the plant for P8,000 to P10,000. How to take of of the beautiful leaves of Tetrasperma Aurea? Clean leaves lessens the risk of pest infestation & maximizes your plant's ability to photosynthesize. Keep your plants looking shiny and dust free with our 100% Organic Leaf Cleaner. The Shopleaf Mister Bottle has three modes: mist, spray and lock. It features a soft-pull trigger design. HOW TO USE: Shake well before each use Spray directly onto foliage and wipe dry with a cloth Use once every week or every 2 weeks You must Store it in a cool dry place and keep away from direct sunlight. Shelf Life: 18 months You can also use Neem Dust, it is an organic plant supplement and natural product derived from neem kernels. It is popularly used as a natural fertilizer & plant supplement because of its insecticidal properties.  photo credit: RL International Product Highlights: Effective as fertilizer, pesticide

Philodendron Burle Marx Flame has a very unique and captivating mature leaf pattern. If you have a Raphidophora Tetrasperma, the kind of care is most likely the same. The plant best thrives on a chunky soil medium. A soilless mixture of coco peat, coco cubes, pumice and vermicast is the best medium for Burle marx Flame. The price of one leaf in 2020 is P100,000 and dropped to P10,000 per leaf on the current market price. You can use home-made fertilizer like banana peel and msg on your plant since it is not a variegated plant. Place the plamt on a high humid environment wih lots of indirect sunlight.  It is better if you can provide a plant pole to let the plant crawl ad activate its aerial roots. Slow-release fertilizer like Osmocote or thermocote made from Thailand is recommended.

What does it mean when rare plants are flooding the local gardens. It means it is not rare anymore and the price already dropped. This is good news to all plant enthusiasts and collectors like me since the expensive plants before are now affordable. Plants that are hard to find before the pandemic are now all over the plant garden. The picture below is a river of Philodendron Pink Princess which cost P20,000 per leaf in 2020 and is now P400 for a plant with 5 leaves or more. I remember when I really wanted to buy this plant at the beginning of 2022. I saw a post in the marketplace for two small leaves for P3,000 and the seller told me it is not yet established but since it comes with a good price, I asked the seller to ship it from Mindanao to my place in Luzon. And after two weeks the plant was gone as it did not thrive. Last year, I bought my second plant for P2,000 with four big leaves already. The bottom line here, if we will wait for other rare plants like Variegated Billitiae and

Monstera Thai Cons can be grown through tissue cultured. Which means it can be reproduced in mass numbers. Unlike Monstera Borsigiana Albo which can be propagated only by stem cuttings. And what does it mean. Anytime soon the supply of this plant will be greater than the demand and the producer of the plant mostly from Thailand will have to decrease its price.   I remember I have watch one plant vlogger and she said that she bought her Thai Cons (big size) before pandemic for only nine hundred pesos. And during pandemic the price of medium thai cons skyrocketed to forty thousand to eighty thousand and big size or extra large would cost as much as one hundred thousand pesos. I suggest for the buyer to wait the price drop before buying this beautiful pant. Because from personal experience, I have my medium size Thai Cons with only three leaves in 2021 for sixteen thousand pesos. This time you can but such for only three thousand five hundred to four thousand pesos. I believed in third qu

In my experience plants can also thrive well in Porcelain Ceramic pots. I used to plant and propagate mg favorite plants in a well-draining plastic pot and sometimes in a clay pot.  One time I tried to plant my Shangrila Pothos propagation in a ceramic pot and it thrive well. So on my next propagation of rare plants, I have chosen to plant them in imported porcelain pots (actual pictures below). Although there is only one hole at the bottom, I used a fast-draining soil mix so the water won't get stuck which might cause root rot. I used a mixture of coco fiber, coco cubes and loam soil to make the soil mix a bit loose. Coco fiber will retain moisture so you don't have to water the plant everyday. I have propagated my Adansonii Albo and Aurea, also my Variegated Bipen and Variegated Philodendron Burle Marx The photo above is five leafer Monstera Adansonii Aurea which I cut from a mother plant bought from Thailand.

Variegated Shangrila Pothos is one of the most rare species in Pothos family. Just like any other Pothos like Golden Pothos, Marble Pothos and Global Green, it is easy to care and propagate. It can thrive under the direct sunlight and even with low light like in the comfort room. But since we are talking about variegated sleeping pothos it is better to place it in direct sunlight to 'sun stress' the plnt and have its variegation more pronounce. Watering: Water only when the toptwo inches of the soil is dry.  Make sure you are using a well-draining pots. Soil Mix- Pothos can thrive in every type of soil mix. Loam soil alone can do. Propagation: You can propagate on water or directly into the soil. Better if you can put a pole to the plant to make it crawl the pole which will easily activated  the aerial roots.

Philodendron Bipen  Variegata is one of the easiest plants to take care of considering it belongs to the family of Philodendrons. However, the variegated one needs extra care. The plant needs to be placed in a  high-humidity environment. Philodendrons can tolerate direct sunlight and rain. During the pandemic, one leaf of variegated bipen cost around one hundred thousand for one leaf only. Now you can buy one leaf for only two thousand pesos. Fertilizer: Osmocote 14-14-14 since it is a variegated plant. Do not put Urea or 'Abono' since the leaves will revert to pure green. Pot- It needs a well-draining pot. Watering: Water only if the two inches of topsoil was already dry. Propagation: it is much better to provide a moss pole to maximize the growth of its aerial roots. One the aerial roots are activated, then you make cuttings and propagate. The photo below is my actual propagation and I tried putting it on a ceramic pot instead of the usual plastic pot to see if it will thriv

See how beautiful this propagation of mine. A big matured sized leaves Monstera Borsigiana Albo Japan Cultivar. I have bought the mother plant imported from Holland. I place it in a high humidity environment with  filtered sun and it seems he likes it as it thrives very well. In 2021, this plant was very costly with one leaf for Php 50,000. I bought my plant sometime in the last quarter of 2021 which cost 65,000 with two stems already. This propagation of mine with seven big leaves was sold for Php30,000. It has a very good gene which you can tell from its petiole alone. Stay tuned as I will share more gardening tips from some of my rare plant collections.

During the pandemic,  most people turned to became "Plantito" and "Plantita."  In this post,  I wanted to share my experience on How to take care of Monstera Borsigiana Albo.  The plant below is my actual plant propagation.  The mother plant came all the way from Holland.  The best place to keep the Monstera Borsigiana Albo is at the bright indirect sunlight for it to maintain good variegation.  Water the plant only when the top soil is dry. And use Osmocote 14-14-14 fertilizer instead of Urea or Abono. You can see that my propagation's newest leaf already turned half-moon albo. The type of variegation of this particular Monstera plant is Japan White Tiger. During summer: Summer heat and increased evaporation mean your plants need more water than usual. To keep them hydrated, water your plants when the top 2 inches of the soil feels dry to the touch. Be sure to allow water to drain correctly from the pot to prevent root rot.