Gardening : Arrowhead Vines
The last time I bumped into a plant is when I happened to go to The Ranch, Bandung with my friends, and brought home some cacti and succulents--which later I killed it. And there was some other time when I got a cactus from wedding souvenir, and again, it died slowly under my hands.
Back when I was in school, I could remember I helped out mum in the garden and I'm pretty sure I didn't mess it up.
I'm glad that I finally move on and get myself another chance with greeneries.
One day when I was home, Mom packed me some plants that is hard to kill for my new house: sanseviera, aloe vera, pothos, and syngonium.
the first three I mention are plants that I believed most people is familiar with. For you who don't have any experience with plants in advance, no worries, my mom's choice is perfectly fit for beginners. For this post, I'm gonna tell my experience with syngonium podophyllum as known as arrowhead vines—my favorite house plant.
At first, I put syngoniums in the bathroom where there's no sunlight.
I put another in the corner of my kitchen, which is dark, but it was much drier than in the bathroom. They both were doing just fine yet they don't show any growth at all.
As far as I'm concerned with it, I moved them in the backyard when they get indirect sunlight all day—and that was the turning point.
They THRIVE. The foliage turns bigger and greener—I couldn't be happier.
They produce new babies aggressively after I watered it with rinsed rice water and put it in a high humidity place. Voila! they're on the right growing conditions. In addition, just let it dry out between watering since they are prone to root rot.
However, even though they look amazing inside your house, make sure to keep it away from your pets since it is poisonous.
Later, I decided to both soil propagate (tongcep—potong tancep) and water propagate it right after I notice they grow aerial roots. Both are successful but the soil propagation take longer to grow than the one that come from water propagation.
Some things I could learn at this point is that generally plant's growth depends on many variables such as sunlight (and the intensity), humidity, my watering habit, and the soil. As for arrowhead vines, they prefer bright indirect sunlight, and they tolerate low light exposure. I water these babies once a week with a rinsed rice water.
Arrowhead vines is a good teller in terms of watering. They will be drooping when you underwater it, or telling you when something went wrong. Moreover, since I put them between my other plants, my backyard create a certain level of humidity up until they grow aerial roots a lot.
Occasionally I will write more about my experiences and everything I learnt from youtube (thank you, Amanda!) in this blog.
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