Skip to main content

Fusspots with too much time on their hands

That's what I've always thought of people who showered their houseplants, anyway... I had heard of it, but deeply hoped I didn't know anybody who actually did it.

Turns out, I do it.

Okay, so now I draw the line at showering with my houseplants.

These rosemaries, overwintering in the living room window, were completely infested with some sort of teeny-aphid-thing that left dusty gray residue and webs all over them.
It was probably my fault because every time I pruned the rosemaries, I'd just lazily drop the prunings over the soil at the base - I figured it was healthy mulch, but it was probably just harbouring bad insects.

Anyway, I noticed a few dead leaves and figured they were so horrible to look at - I'd better clean them up a bit, starting with... a SHOWER.

They look much improved after their 5-minute shower, by the way. The leaves are all glossy and wet, but no trace of bugs or webs. A completely organic remedy! Okay, if you don't count the chlorine and fluoride in the water.

Most importantly, I can feel myself starting to love them again. Sort of like teenagers, I guess. Clean them up a bit and you get a glimpse of what you liked about them in the first place.

Gee, your rosemary smells terrific.
p.s. These are my Rosemary Topiary project: I bought them cheap in the fall, so they didn't really spend much time inside. Looking at this "Before" picture, I think they actually looked healthier back then, but it's not really a fair comparison, because I had to cut off all the big healthy lower branches. You can see, I hope, that the tops are WAY less scrawny, and there's more brown "trunk" wood than before.
I wish I'd taken more pictures along the way... but I will start now so you can see how they're coming along!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a