2 months ago when we went to the mountains, we bought some plants from one of the shops on the side of the road. The plants are way cheaper to get there than the city for obvious reasons and it was so accessible so we got 3 plants as we were driving home.
I don't know anything about plants at all but I still want flowers since we got a nice balcony but we never use them. I wanted to start gardening and stuff but since I don't know anything yet (and I just didn't want them to die lol) I only bought 3 with me.
This is a carnation plant and it's a bit tiny. :D I just asked the vendor how to take care of it and I followed the instructions. I placed it outside making sure it gets direct sunlight but not to the point of 12 noon sunlight where it's really really hot. I water it every other day too when I see that it has dried and surprisingly it has been thriving.
I sprayed it with water just so it would look nice in photos lol. But I always water on the soil.
I was a bit nervous about getting plants since I think of myself as not having a green thumb at all. I tried planting seeds when I was a kid and they didn't sprout at all. Of course there are a lot of factors like soil, humidity, amount of sunlight, etc. that I didn't look into. But it was enough to discourage me from planting for life as I'm afraid they'll just die in my hands. XD
The flowers bloom and would stay nice for 2-3 days but after that it starts dying. I'm not sure if this was normal for carnations since I couldn't really find an answer on the internet but maybe that's just the flowers' lifespan. I was worried at first but whenever a flower dies, a few more would bloom in a few days anyway so I figured it just how it works. :D
It grows this more often and it's becoming bushier, so I think it is happy. :D
I also got a rose, which doesn't look like one but that's what the vendor told me anyway lol. This is also growing nicely as it blooms flowers from time to time.
It's the same with carnation too. It blooms then after a few days the flower dies and fall off. Then would grow another one anyway. Call me stupid but I thought flowers just bloom permanently and they stay like that hahah.
I don't know who's doing this tbh. Maybe the birds since there are 2 types of birds that live on the roof of the house. I saw some bird poop beside the plant so maybe it's them but I'm not sure, do they really pluck leaves? I don't see any slugs or snails or caterpillars either... but it could be that I just haven't caught them yet lol. I'm not sure what to do with this as long as the plant doesn't die.
The last one is a plant that looks really nice and grows really long - the vendor told us it's a "white fairy" plant but when I did some research on it it doesn't look like it. Maybe the vendor just mistaken them for that or just didn't know much about it but anyway luckily I found what it's called. It's an asiatic jasmine also called snow n summer. I guess it is called like that because some leaves are pink then they turn to white. It's really pretty and easy to grow. They did in fact grow really long stems but I think it's better to prune the stems so it becomes bushier.
Apparently it is also really easy to propagate them as they grow roots in the stems. I should try that at some point so I will have more of them in the balcony.
I'm really happy the plants turned out well. Right now I'm only relying on the internet to tell me anything I need to know about growing plants and it has been really good so far. Hopefully we can turn the balcony into a nice mini garden too so we can finally chill there and it won't be as hot and humid with all the plants and maybe experience picking a fruit or vegetable from there too!
