About a month ago I finally steeled myself enough to talk about the struggles my houseplants have been having.... because of me.  Sigh.

And I did make changes.  I've been using the "is it wet or dry" measure thing and holy smokes y'all some of these plants are NEVER needing water and I would totally have watered them, probably killing them.  But not just killing them, also giving a really amazing breeding ground for fungus gnats.  Apparently they LOVE overly wet soil and, well, yes, I've been dealing with them for ages (years?)  mainly with Sticky Traps (which do work, but ewww, gross - dead bugs! and unaesthetically pleasing yellow things everywhere.)

Actually, I have this one plant I brought home and gave a little dab of water too and it has NOT dried out in weeks.  Weeks and weeks that thing just registers "wet" (and so I don't water it) and it also showed signs of not loving life, so I repotted it into new/dry soil and it still is reading wet!  The plants not doing well even as a new to me plant and I'm doing everything "right" in terms of watering so I don't really know what to say/think about that.

Oh and grow lights.  I have one light I bought (the overly Wet Plant is under it FWIW) and a bulb that I put into a light for some other plants and the last bunch I just hope get enough light from the direct widow light they're in.  (Fingers crossed.)

I feel like since I've started using the grow lights (not a lot, an hour or two most mornings while I use my SAD lamp cuz that feels ironic and funny... you get some light, you get some light, and *I* get some light!) some plants have put out new shoots.  Or at least they seem happier?  (But not that "too wet" plant, it just keeps looking like it's going to die on me.... sigh.)

And back to the fungus gnats.  It almost feels like (and looks like from the sticky traps) that the fact I'm not over watering in the same way is cutting down on their amounts.  And now my neighbour has given me a, well what do I call it, a poison?  (It's not allowed in Canada apparently, so she brought some in from the states and gave me some to use.) And so I didn't water this week to further dry out the soil (apparently the gnats love the damp soil and have a two week breeding period so I'm trying to see if I can *dry* them out) and then next week I'll use the "enhanced" water to hopefully kill any larvae (ewww) or whatever (gah!)

So I mean I'm trying.  I've changed my apparently heavy watering, and I've added some bonus light help and I'm going to try to eradicate these bugs (a plant expert online told me I have to repot everything to get rid of them but that's beyond what I want to do right now... geez.)  So here's hoping we can all be happier and healthier and maybe I will even be able to get rid of the little yellow trap things, eh?