Bring In The Green

The desert keeps getting hotter and spending time in the garden isn't so pleasant when It's 117 degrees out. Last summer I created an inside garden for myself the play in while it is too hot to dig in the dirt outside. 

Two of my plant shelves, badly in need of rehab

I started with one shelf on a bookcase. My dad kindly installed a grow light for me and I started bringing in succulents and cacti to fill the space. When I ran out of space, I bought more grow lights and expanded to another shelf. And then another. I tried out all kinds of pots and plants, trying to mix and match shapes and textures. It has been a blast. As an added bonus, having the grow lights in my room has helped with my depression. 

I covered the other two plant shelves with contact paper to protect the wood. For some reason I didn't with this one. My first step was to clean it and get it covered. 

It has now been more than a year and my indoor garden is in need of rehab. Some plants sadly didn't make it. Others did really well and have needed to be trimmed and/or repotted. The result is a garden that looks more chaotic than calming. Let the reorganization begin!

I started by cleaning off the biggest shelf, scrubbing it clean, and covering it with clear contact paper. I have no idea why I didn't do this before. The wood ended up warped and messy, but it should look fine once I get more plants on it. 

As I started moving things around, I found a couple of plants that had grown rather wild. I just didn't notice because they were in a corner and other plants helped prop them up. Those will need to be trimmed and/or repotted. Others just look sad and will also need to be repotted or simply placed where there is more or less light. This is not a project that will be done in a day or even a week. I plan to give each plant what it needs. 

Diedra and Ivy Girl had to inspect my work

You can see in the pictures that I have different grow lights on the bottom shelf. They aren't as pretty, but I love the flexibility of  being able to move the lights around to give different plants what they need. And all of my grow lights are on timers. Bonus!

And as I reorganize my indoor space, I will document which plants are where and how they do in any given space. I have a gardening journal that one of my sisters gave me a couple years ago. I will use it to keep track and to help myself ID each plant. It will help me create better micro climates so that I hopefully won't lose as many plants as I have with my haphazard "it kinda looks good there" method. 

Let the fun begin!