Thursday, November 7, 2013

Urban Jungle Bloggers: My Gardening Secret


Hello urban jungle friends and green lovers! A new month has started and we are slightly gliding from mild and sunny autumn days into more gloomy and cooler winter days. November is a period not only of meteorological shifts, it also means a considerable change for your plants at home. Even more so if you have cacti and succulents at home like I do. So I will focus in this month's post on cacti and succulents and share 'my gardening secret' with you. Although I don't think it's a secret at all, but maybe it might be handy for green newbies and those of you considering the addition of cacti and succulents in your home.

Cacti and succulents are perfect green companions for small apartments and for busy urban folks. They require a minimum of care and still thrive and prosper happily. During the sunnier periods of spring and summer you can place your cacti and succulents on sunny places, windowsills, balconies, gardens. You water them depending on the weather every other week and fertilize them to make sure they get all the botanical nutrition they need. But when winter season comes upon us, your green friends will slide into botanical hibernation. This means you have to care even less for them, but you need to consider a few simple points for the perfect plant hibernation.

Small scale dwellers will need to find a nook in their homes that is less exposed to daylight and thus ideally a tad cooler. If you have no extra room or space like an unheated stairways, basement, an unheated extra room, try of find a corner of your apartment with the least sunlight exposure and try not to overheat the room (it's anyway not so good to live in overheated apartments for that matter). Group your cacti and succulents together and leave them there. Stop fertilizing them as of October/November until warmer spring days arrive in March. Stop watering them too. If they remain in a heated space, water them only rarely to avoid complete dehydration. But be stingy with water. They don't really need a lot. 

Even though your cacti and succulents will go into hibernation over winter, look after them from time to time. And love them no less than in spring and summer. They will reward you with fleshy, vibrant greens and probably a few blooms coming spring. Happy urban gardening!

Urban Jungle Bloggers is a monthly series by 3 bloggers: Igor (Happy Interior Blog), Jocelyn (The Little Room of Style) and Judith (JOELIX.com). Every month we share ideas to create an urban jungle through styling ideas, DIYs and green tips & tricks. You can find additional inspiration on our Urban Jungle Bloggers Pinterest board. Want to join? Use #urbanjungle on Twitter and Instagram. Or let us know and we'll share the badge and upcoming topics with you. Let's bring some green into your homes and blogs!


Photography by Igor Josifovic

18 comments :

  1. Igor, how I love your plants and how you have given them such a happy place to thrive! Your tips are helpful and simple, just the way I like it. As always, your photography is stellar! Your crystal is beautiful as well! Have a wonderful day my friend! Jocelyn

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  2. So cool, Igor! Your green collection looks all ready for winter. And those planters, I really love them, especially the Atelier Stella one. I think we should do a UJB post about planters some day, I'm always struggling with that. Also thanks for the useful tips: I always tend to give my plants too much water in the winter, so thanks for the reminder ;)

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  3. Love the changing seasons' attitude. I have to admit I tend to move them around very rarely. Love Judith idea about planters. Once again I am sorry I didn't make it this month. next one, I'll join you again :-) have a lovely green day xxi.

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  4. I love your secret garden and the gardening secret. Thanks for the tips, they're very useful, for a girl like me, who loves greens but can not take cake of them properly.
    Have a great day!

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  5. I like this post a lot. The photos and the colours of the photos are great. And I love the yellow spots just as the style of the black board.

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  6. Your plant colletion looks so lovely on that side board! Great cacti & succulent tips! ;) Is it "my" little pilea in that terracotta pot? It's so big now! You're taking good care of it! :)

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    1. Well spotted, Emelie! It is your little pilea that has well adopted to my little urban jungle! I love it dearly:-)

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  7. Lovely collection and tips Igor - I have an outside urban garden but need to get me some greenery inside, this could be a great place to start. Love the spotted pot too. Axxx

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  8. Such a whimsical and charming collection of pots for your lovely plants to live in - I love it! Thanks for the tips - T & I need them as our succulent called Geoffrey that we've had since university is on his ninth life already! ;)

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    1. If Geoffrey is in his ninth life, you better just keep doing what you do with him. Seems to be fine for him:-)

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  9. So. Sweet! And that 'Pilea peperomioides' is still on my wishlist...

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  10. i'm still in love with the smiling plant pots:D

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  11. Good tips, they might just help me not to kill every plant I own. That metal tray is great too! :-)

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    1. Glad you enjoyed the read! I am sure your plants will survive!!! Sending good green energy!

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  12. Cacti.... oh, not my favs:-) Loving your tips though... and your spotty pots!

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  13. I didn't know this Igor! I'm so bad with plants. Thanks I will improve the life of my plants this week. ;)

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  14. Wauw! Im totally in love with the cactus and the use of colour. I use these colours also in my styling and it makes me so happy!

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  15. I'm a total gardening novice and I seem to annihilate everything I've ever tried to grow so succulents seem like a great place to start.

    Now that I have your fab tips there are no more excuses for not taking the plunge - thanks Igor! :D

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