lowes venus fly trap

Flowers are the sweetest things God ever made, and forgot to put a soul into. ~ Henry Beecher, Life Thoughts, 1858

Are you an Ikea fan? I am. I totally am. Some of their stuff is cheap and not worth buying. Other stuff though, totally worth it. A while back mom and I were wandering through Ikea (I can't even remember what for now) and we found this guy…

The Ikea Socker Greenhouse

Isn't he adorable?!?! I just *HAD* to have him. So I paid for him and he went home with me. I knew immediately what flowers I planned to put in him. African violets. Yep, I'm a glutton for punishment. I went with Hubs to Lowes and we picked up 4 of them plus pots and special potting mix.

Here's what I will say – getting this sucker together was not easy. I totally had to stop at one point for fear of breaking it and get the Hubs to help me out. Truthfully, if it didn't entail a thirty minute drive, I probably would have exchanged the greenhouse for another one. We kept getting snagged on a bent part and Hubs had to manually unbend it without ripping the whole thing to shreds. In the end, he got it to work. It doesn't close perfectly but I'm ok with that. He's still freaking cute.

He's hanging out right now in our dining room.

Close -up

His perch in our dining room.

Opening the top

Flower close-up

Truth is, I potted this sucker at least a month ago and guess what? The flowers all died. Just the flowers though… the foliage is still looking great. I'm fairly certain the reasoning for this is a lack of humidity. This is where the whole thing about this greenhouse being damaged from the get-go comes into play. I'm going to try something different with them to raise their humidity level (filling the 'saucers' with rocks and water, then placing the plants on top). Hopefully it'll help. If not, this may mean that I have to find another plant that will thrive.

I've linked up to these great parties:

Bloom Designs, Skip to My Lou, and Chef in Training.

As well as…

One Artsy Mama

"I bought a Venus Fly Trap today. I was going to name it 'Republican', but the fly trap is beneficial to the environment. I'll save that name – someday I might find a plant that eats poor people and minorities." ~ Unknown

Before you get your panties in a knot I want to clarify that 1, I found the quotation funny and 2, it's about the only quotation out there about Venus Flytraps. If you know me, you know I'm a Republican. I'm about as right wing as it gets EXCEPT on environmental issues. Then I swing left. Part of the humor with this is that I voted the other day and the Republican line was out the door and there wasn't a single person in the Democratic line.

So when the Hubs and I were out shopping the other day for various landscaping items we came across a Venus Flytrap. I thought he was quite nifty but we ultimately decided not to buy him as I didn't know squat about their care. Over the next few days I researched their needs on this website. Here's the gist: they like a lot of light, moist but not wet soil (and you must water with distilled water only), absolutely no fertilizer, and loose soil. Sounds easy enough right? About a month later we were wandering through Lowe's and we spotted another one. This time, I picked him up.

Apparently, Venus Flytrap's don't like for their soil to warm up or cool down too quickly so based on recommendations on the aforementioned website I got a Styrofoam cup, cut the top off, punched holes in the bottom, and placed the sucker in a terra cotta pot. Then I filled it with a combination of plain ol' potting soil, vermiculite (seed starter mix), peat moss and moisture granules (I placed some light pebbles on top to hold down the peat moss).

He did great for the first few days and then suddenly one of his 'mouths' turned black. Apparently this can happen from too much light, too little light, and even a 'bad bug' (one laden with pesticides, etc). In this case, I'm fairly certain it's a light related issue. This little guy was living in a small shelf in the interior gardening section of Lowe's and after I planted him I just stuck him right outside in partial sun. basically, I think it was just a shock to his system. So, I haven't changed anything and the situation isn't getting better or worse. I'm going to leave it as is unless it starts getting worse.

I haven't seen Chomper (that's his name btw) chow down on anything yet but I'm definitely watching out for it! Here's hoping he eats some mosquitos!!!

Here's our little guy:

"Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs." ~ Fran Lebowitz

Do you ever go out shopping for something and just happen to stumble over something PERFECT that you've been looking for FOREVER? Yeah, that totally happened to the Hubs and I this weekend. You see, we had a $75 off coupon to Lowe's and we need tons of supplies for our renovation project so we headed that direction to pick up a few things. We were wandering through the plants & patio section looking for a few plants and some bags of mulch when we stumbled across this:

source

He may not look like much but OMG he's perfect! I love rockers/swings but this guy is also crazy comfortable even if you prop your feet up on a footstool/ottoman. The padding is super think and soooo comfy. I seriously just wanted to take a nap in him. We've been looking for super comfy outdoor chairs for years and years and this is the first one we've found that we've both fallen head over heels about. The only problem? He's $248. And we need 2. And $500 just isn't in our budget right now. So, we left our patio chair soul mate at Lowes. *tear, sniff, sniff*