Beating the January Blahs

Oh man, I’ve had the January blahs before but I have NEVER had them this badly! It must be to do with the lack of light we have here and it’s compounded by the fact that since we moved up north, I don’t really leave the house that much. I do go pick the kids up from school every day but it’s a max of 10 min that I’m outside and it has been so cold that it’s not really an enjoyable 10 min. It’s started to warm up which was a surprise and I don’t want to sound ungrateful but it’s just made things worse. There is a pile of dirty snow as tall as our 9 year old on our front lawn courtesy of the city grater and everything is a muddy mess! I just want winter to be over but I know we have a long way to go yet. 

I needed some pretty. In a bad way. All the Christmas pretty is packed away and without the tree, things feel well, blah. Straight to the nursery I went and I picked up some plants. I also interrogated the ladies there because I have a pretty long rap sheet of plant murders in my history. They set me up and I feel confident that these ones will live on and cure my January woes! The thrift stop also provided me with a bit of glee. I found these old copper canisters in there which will make perfect homes for my new babies.

For my wee cactus garden I lined the aluminum base of the terrarium with a plastic liner. The nursery ladies said that plants often hate being housed in metal and the liner will protect them. I added some stones for drainage also at their suggestion.

I nestled them in their new home and filled in the spaces with special cactus soil – you guessed it – because the nursery ladies told me so. These guys are supposed to be watered once every three weeks and I have a reminder set in my phone.

Once they were all snuggled in I put the terrarium together and added more stones just to make it look nice. I gave them their first watering and on day two I’m happy to say that they are still alive HAHA. I love that one has a red flower on top – I wonder how long it will bloom for? If anyone knows let me know, I forgot to ask about it.

When it came to the copper pots I realized that they were aluminum on the inside too and that I didn’t have liners. I improvised and layered in two sheets of plastic wrap and a sheet of parchment on top. I figure that it may well break down but it should help until they are big enough to need replanting – if they live that long anyway it will be a miracle.

I liked how the parchment looked so I cut the plastic wrap close to the container and left the parchment sticking up. Cute no? I’m so happy with these and I’m not entirely sure where they will live but for now they are on the kitchen counter. This peperomia obtusifolia looks fantastic snuggled into it’s copper vessel.

The potted plants need watering once per week and I did the same rock in the bottom for drainage and filled in with cactus mix – the ladies said that would be just fine. I need to add some more parchment in to the larger pot just for show so it matches the other because I didn’t have enough sticking out for my liking but I can do that whenever.

These plants bring so much life to the house – we didn’t have any at all and taking down the Christmas tree sure made me realize how badly we needed some. It’s going to be a long time until I can get outside and get my fingers in the dirt so this little project went a long way towards a happy ‘there is life even in January’ feeling. Do you suffer from the January blahs? What do you do to help banish them? I’d love to know!