Post #201: Little Projects

Broken crayons in silicone ice tray

New crayons

We've been doing little projects around the house.  

When we were visiting my parents, I found the crayon box my uncle made me when I was little.  It still had crayons inside, although most were broken.  Actually, my parents had a shoe box full of old crayons, so Miss E and I picked out a bunch of different shades of different colors, with the plan to melt them into new crayons.  We were lucky enough to find this silicone ice tray intended to make water bottle ice cubes.  

I baked them in the toaster oven at 200 degrees for about 20 min, and they turned out perfect!

The other project is my new obsession, which is mother-in-law's tongue, sansevieria plants.  My mother-in-law gave me one a year ago when she divided her massive plant.  The one she gave me was a small-sized one, so I did a bit of research to identify it.  It seems to be a Dwarf Laurentii cultivar, but while doing the research, I found all types of different cultivars, with new cultivars still being discovered.

In January, I ordered my second sansevieria, which is a "Golden Hahnii" cultivar.  It's very small and very cute.  I had it at my desk at work for a bit, but it started looking sad.  I think I over-watered it one time and also there isn't a lot of sun at my desk.  (While they are supposed to thrive in poor conditions, the one thing that can kill a sansevieria is too much water.)  I found two coveted cultivars at my local nursery this March: Silver Hahnii and Black Star.  Those were strong plants, so I repotted them and divided the Black Star, placing part of it in the same pot as the "dying" Golden Hahnii.  Guess who perked up after that?

Sansevieria Jade Dwarf before repotting

This spring I started checking my local stores for house plants.  I was able to find a bunch of rare cultivars at Walmart, of all places.  Last weekend, I found a Jade Dwarf at Home Depot.  It was kind of hidden amoung other things, so I almost missed it.  It was also half dead, and I went to customer service to get a discount on it.  I got it for a 50% discount, which made sense to me because 2/3 of the roots appeared to be salvagable.  So last weekend, Miss E helped me repot all of these finds.  I was able to identify Black Moon today, after researching another variety.

--吴碧芙

Sansevieria (clockwise from top left, cultivar-purchase location): Bantel's Sensation-Walmart, Laurentii-Walmart, Jade Dwarf-Home Depot, Dwarf Laurentii-Walmart, Dwarf Black Moon-Walmart