Balcony Plants

You may remember many months ago, we proudly brought home 2 plants for our balcony. Both have struggled. In particular, the diffenbachia has been plagued by mealybugs and I've not been successful at eradicating the little buggers. The kuping gaja ( elephant ear) has no infestation but just isn't thriving. A friend suggested that because it was in a fairly small pot the soil was just getting too hot during the day. I've moved the kuping gaja to the other balcony where it is cooler in the afternoons so we'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, a friend is downsizing and moving from a house to an apartment. She had lots and lots of plants in a courtyard. She offered a few to me and I gladly took them. We had discussed it before but on Monday this week at our sewing get together, she asked me if I would like to stop over after sewing and pick up a few plants. One is a giant peace lily. The other is a diffenbachia which is already much larger than the original one we purchased. I've tossed the sickly diffenbachia in favor of this new one. Scale here doesn't show. The peace lily pot is about 76cm in diameter. It was really heavy but we had help at my friend's house, along with Pak Oky,  to get it into the car. Once at home we borrowed the cart down in the parking garage to bring them up to the apartment. Then Bu Tin, Pak Oky and I got the peace lily off the cart. The diffenbachia was a lot easier to manage. My friend even threw in a blue tarp for the floor of the car. (If you don't remember, our car is a mini-van, a Toyota Alphard, so there is a lot of room in the back if you fold up the rear seats.)

For years I carried a blue tarp in my car- just in case a plant, some bags of soil or mulch or even some rocks or stepping stones jumped in the car. Now I am all set for the next plant run.

I didn't snap a photo of it, but my friend also gave us a plant that lives only in water. It came in a plain round glass bowl but she would like that back so we will have to find something pretty for the plant to call home. This will be an indoor plant. I'm not 100% sure what it is.