I have a lot of plants (Part 4)

A brief history of Elinor and her plants

November 16, 2025

If you haven’t seen part 3, go check it out :)

Summer 2021

disaster strikes

In the summer of 2021 I was away doing an internship and upon my return, I discovered an insane thrips infestation that wrecked havoc over much of my plant collection. At the time, I had no idea what plant pests were and this was a relatively unfortunate introduction and I did not do a great job at dealing with it.I didn't do much, and that was my biggest mistake. Never again!

You can see the thrips damage on the top leaf, and the white dots on the lower leaves are the thrips themselves. Oof.

Fall 2021

Due to the pests, many of my plants weren’t thriving and I didn’t take a lot of photos. Here are two that I will highlight:

star wars pothos

Remember Star Wars Pothos that I’d propagated on May 4th, 2020? I used command strips to pin the vines on the wall above my desk in Sept 2021, and by December it was absolutely thriving!Aroids love to climb, so this shouldn't be surprising

hoya compacta

I wanted my hoya compacta to live, but this lil guy had other plans. In October 2021, I propagated in an attempt to try and save it.

In October 2021, I chopped and propagated this hoya. The little jar on the right never grew anything and eventually died about a year later.

November 2021: the slightest hint of new growth.

December 2021: a funky leaf at the base, and a new leaf baby at the middle!

Early March 2022: two new leaves finally growing from the top.

Late March 2022: leaves matured!

I don’t have any more photos between the end of March 2022 and April 2023, but it seems to me that this plant stopped growing. In general they grow very slowly, but I think it might’ve had flat mites that I couldn’t see due to the dense curvature of the leaves. When I moved out in April 2023, it had fewer leaves in April 2023 than it did in 2022 (last photo above). My roommate took this plant with her so I don’t know how long it lived after that.