I haven't written a post about it yet because it's hard for me to talk about, but my plants have been struggling a lot lately.  In fact, there's been a lot of death.  I'm not ok with this.

I went to a few plant places and asked what they think might be causing it (I was wondering about lack of light since my blinds go down for all the warm/hot months) and my best gut take on it is that I have a tendency to overwater.

My plants used to be fine.  I'd water when I remembered.  (Ooops?)  Or when they looked like they were hurting!  And then my neighbour talked about how she waters her grandmas place once a week and my neighbour has a lot of plants that look really healthy so I thought ok then, I'll try that!  And so I turned to a weekly watering schedule.

And everybody started dying.

Ok, not everybody, but lots of them.  I killed spider plants.  I've always been amazing with spider plants!  

A couple of months ago (July-August) my neighbour went on a trip and asked me to water her plants.  That's when I noticed that my neighbour has a lot of succulents.  Not the type of plants I have (I have always killed them... always.... ahem).  So maybe, I thought, she wasn't the person to take plant advice from.  Damn.

I tried cutting back on my watering.  I tried "finger testing" the soil.  They still were so so unhappy.  I thought maybe the cool A/C air was hurting the ones semi-directly in its path, so I moved them.  Didn't seem to help.  I started getting really really upset.  (Death, even in this "small" way, I find really upsetting, and knowing it was likely my "fault"?  Well that really hurt.  It was messing with me.)

So, after trying a lot of things... even considering a grow lamp (I discovered my brother has one even though his place gets a CRAP TON more light than mine, and even though one of the plant people told me if there was enough light to read by there was enough light for the plants.... shrug) I thought I'd buy a plant meter.

I don't know the official term, but it's a device you stick into your soil and it registers if the soil is dry/damp/wet.  (Make sure you wipe it off after every poke so that you don't transfer anything potentially bad form soil to soil.)

And you all?  If I thought I was overwatering before?  Well, yeah, now I have solid proof.

I have plants that are on week three of being "wet" now.  I would for sure have added water.

I have plants that the top layer looks dry as a desert but at "root level" the plants are damp.  Wow.

So I'm now still "watering" weekly, but instead of just watering everybody, I am testing and only watering those who need it.

I'm maybe still not doing it completely right, but I'm hoping things will improve with me being much more careful with how much water I'm giving.  (I think I've been pretty naive by thinking that "oh, they're indoors in a small container, they must need lots of water!)

I'm also wondering about repotting the new plants (I bought a few to help feel a little less sad about the ones I lost) as maybe they're retaining all that water due to the small size they came in?  Or maybe the new soil they came with just holds water "better"?

I'm sure I could do a lot more learning but I've always sort of enjoyed my plants passively.  

This death situation I've had for the last... what, six months?  Year?  Has been a huge anomaly for me and I wish I'd never adjusted what didn't really need adjusted.  

I think I'm also going to get a small "good looking" grow lamp for the darkest corner, but I'm hoping that my latest changes will let everyone live out happy, full lives again.  And I'm sorry to the ones I accidentally killed.  I was trying to be good, I really was!