I have a lot of plants (Part 5)

A brief history of Elinor and her plants

June 14, 2026

If you haven’t seen part 4, go check it out :)

Fall 2021

As mentioned in part 4, my plant collection was in poor shape after I came back from my summer abroad and I had to get rid of many plants. This made me sad and hence I don’t have a ton of plant photos from this time.

Let’s normalize dead plants

While many people know me as somewhat of a “plant wizard”,Not self-proclaimed---a friend of mine called me this! by no means have I never killed any plants. Let this be a lesson for all of you, whether you’re also a plant nerd or thinking of getting your first houseplant: killing some of your plants is inevitable and normal, and part of the learning process.

Let’s pause for a second and commemorate some plants that I could not save in this time period. I rarely take pictures of plants that are not thrivingAlthough I'm trying to be better at documenting this in the future., but here are two:

Philodendron Brazil that was alive and well in March 2021.

By October, all the vines died and I cut it back to basically nothing in an attempt to save it.

January 2022, I had to accept its death.

My curly spider plants were...

...alive and well in April 2021.

September 2021, this was all that's left, and they both died.

April 2021, my "melange" of philodendrons I'd propagated during the pandemic.

By January, it was very sickly and full of thrips.

About a week later, I chucked it*.

*Actually, I chucked most of it. I fished out 1-2 pieces of my particularly sentimental philodendron Micans to try and save—spoiler alert, it’s still alive today! But that story is very long, and will absolutely get its own blog post in the future…

Krimson Princess

Not all was negative in this time period. I want to highlight a plant I got in September 2021: hoya carnosa tricolor, also known as the Krimson Princess. I got her from this little dépanneur, Marché Milton Parc, which I would frequent when I was feeling down. The minute I saw this beauty, I knew I needed to shell out the money to get her. This was probably the most expensive plantThis is actually a very common hoya and typically inexpensive. The reason this was mildly expensive was due to its size. I’d bought up until that point, and I was so excited I busted out my nice camera and did a photoshoot with this plant:

In the plant store, September 2021.

Marché Milton Parc store.

You'd probably believe me when I say there's a bajillion more photos like this, and I had a lot of trouble picking just four to show here lol.

2022

The plant collection was bouncing back by winter. Here are some photos from January 2022.

Living room in Sept 2021.

And in January 2022.

Living room plants by the grow light.

Living room window plants.

Kitchen window plants.

Shelf in my room Dec 2021.

March 2022.

April 2022.

Spotlights

Scindapsus exotica

I bought a second type of scindapsus (see the whole post dedicated to my first scindapsus here) called scindapsus pictus exotica.

Bought her in Jan 2022.

Growth by March!

May 2022.

ZZ plant

ZZ plant in Jan 2022.

April 2022, really the first new growth since I got him in Feb 2021.

Cebu blue pothos

In summer 2022, I bought a new type of pothos called “cebu blue” from someone on FB marketplace. It was at first just a tiny pot plus a 3-leaf cutting.