Thursday, March 27, 2008

What is Wrong With This Plant?

This is an image of a Norfolk Pine I found somewhere on the internet. It is a perfectly healthy example of this species of plant. See the bow--it can be used as a Christmas tree and be kept as a houseplant afterwards. Great!

Look at the full branches extending out from the trunk. It's nice and full. No bare spots.











Here, on the left, you see my Norfolk Pine. Doesn't look too good, does it? See the straggly limbs? Look how bare the trunk looks. Look how skimpy the branches are. They are pitiful.















Here, on the right, you see the leaves as they drop to their untimely death. They just give up and die and drop down to the carpet.










Here are the set of windows that are directly opposite the plant. To be fair to the plant, and to me, the previous owners of this freecycled plant also had it in their basement where it is currently at my house. But, maybe there just is not enough light down here.






Who can tell me about Norfolk Pines? Is there any way to spur more branches to grow off of the bare spots on the trunk?

The reason I got the plant was to hide the GIANT TV I got from my sister as she upgraded to a
GIANT flat screen TV. We never would have purchased such a huge thing for ourselves. It just seems so ostentatious and decadent and unneeded. Now that we have it, we do enjoy watching movies on it, but I don't like this monstrous black monolith on the table that you see when you look down the stairs into the basement/family room/parlor/salon...

I don't want us to be a bunch of cavemen watching the monolith. We need the plant to hide it.


4 comments:

Neo-agrarian said...

When I first looked at the photos the soil around the plant looked dry. I thought perhaps moister soil. I made a quick search and ... well you can read it.
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/norfolkislandpine.html

To keep the top moist you may want to keep a layer of sphagnum moss on top. Hope this helps.

Laura said...

Thanks neo-agrarian. I'll go check that out.

Mama bee said...

I agree that it looks dry. It may also need to be re-potted. Often if plants are dropping old leaves or branches prematurely it's because they don't have enough nutrients to keep them. It's worth a shot, at least.

(I came here from MDC - not trying to be a creepy stranger. I like your blog.)
~Kristal

Laura said...

Hi mama bee/Kristal!

Thanks. Maybe I'll try to re-pot it. I looked up the info neo-agrarian directed me to and it also said there should be a relative humidity of 50%. It definitely needs more moisture.

MDC is such a great resource, isn't it? I feel like there are lots of like minded people out there in cyber space. You're not a creepy stranger--I'm glad you like my blog.

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