Studio Plant Nursery - Japan Edition

My studio has often doubled as a plant nursery.  I love plants and at our house in SD, the window in the studio was one of only a few to get sunlight.  It was also a room I could close off from the cat who loved to eat some of my plants.  So the studio window sill always had a collection of plants in it.

Out of habit, I suppose, I've been keeping my small collection of Bonsai supplies in the studio here, as well as a few of the trees themselves.

As of today, a few more plants will be joining the studio plant nursery.

We went to an Orchid Festival today in a town about an hour away.  I took a bunch of pictures, of course, and will probably do a post with them soon.  However, I wanted to share the new additions to my plant family right away!

First up is an orchid.  There were many for sale, and it was hard to make a decision, but in the end I chose this one:

Pretty flowers.

Many of the orchids had no tags on them, but this one did.  It has the name on the front and care instructions on the back - in Japanese.  I'm hoping I can translate them, or find care info online.

I am nervous about having an orchid; I've always heard they are hard to care for.  I hope I can keep this one alive!  We did some reading on our smart phones/tablets while there and about all we learned are that there are thousands of types of orchid, all with different needs.  Yikes.  They do seem to want humidity and it certainly has that here, at least in the summers.  This one, while gorgeous, was one of the cheapest...  I just wasn't comfortable spending much, since I'm not confident I can keep it alive.  They had some stunning orchids for sale at upwards of $150.  (I'm sure some can go WAY higher than that...)  Mine was $8.

Next up...  I was excited to see a few Fittonia for sale.  This was a favorite plant of mine back in SD.  It is another one that I had learned wants high humidity.  Hopefully it will do well here.

I love the red-vined leaves.

I also got another Jade plant.  (I have three of them here now).  Jade have always been a favorite of mine and of all of my house plants that I had to rehome to come here, my "mama" Jade was the hardest to give up.  It was "mama", because I had taken several leaves off along the way and sprouted "baby" Jade plants from them.  I had actually resisted getting another Jade plant here, because I know I'll have to leave them behind when we leave.  However, we are going to be here for a while and I really enjoy them..  so, as of today, I have three.

This little one kinda looked like it needed some love.  I had to bring it home.

The last addition are these tiny succulents.  I don't think these little ones are very happy (they were sold to us with quite a discount).  But I thought they were very cute (they are all itty bitty) and maybe I can help them.  I used to be good at saving plants off the "clearance rack" - most of my collection back in SD came from those parts of a store.

I'm excited about my new little additions!  They now join my collection of: bonsai trees, a large Jade that I bought not too long ago, a small philodendron that came from a clearance rack (had been marked down a few times and was not happy - now it has new leaves), and a tiny succulent garden in a pot.  :)