Magpie's Plant Discovery Challenge Extraordinaire
Hello Hello! Hello! :D
Welcome one and all too
“MAGPIE’S PLANT DISCOVERY CHALLENGE EXTRAORDINAIRE”wooyay🌿🌱🌻🌲🎉
Are you a nature lover? Love yourself some planty goodness? Appreciate a good leafy fern? 🌿🌿🌿Well you are in the right place!
Anybody can get involved! -- no need for a fancy camera, or druid level plant knowledge !
*~ HOW TO PLAY! ~*
The aim of the game is to explore your local area and find cool plants 🌻🐦
This could be your houseplants, in your garden or street, out walking the dog, on your way to work, or even on a hike if you want to get super adventurous!
** Please please please! always be careful when approaching a plant you don’t know! If ever in doubt you can always admire from afar! ** 🌻🌱
🌱Once you’ve found a new plant, come and let us know about it !
🌻You could take a photo or leave a description. Bonus cookie if you can figure out what the plant is! - Feel free to help others identify their plants too!
🌿Try to leave nature as you find it & refer to your local wildlife rules before picking anything 😊💚
** There’s no hard rules on how to do this - you could upload a photo, draw or paint it, describe it with words or in a poem or even knit one! I’d be mega impressed to see some knitted plants :O -- have fun and do it your way! <3
*~ TADA! ONE EXAMPLE COURTESY OF MY GARDEN :D ~*
This is a Welsh poppy that has popped up in my back garden :)
Its a small plant but bigger than ones i’ve seen before --a few weeks ago it had loooaadsss of pretty flowers but right now it’s going to seed, the flowers become the little green pods that eventually dry out and if you pull one of them open you get a handful of tiny blacks seeds, I can’t smell anything from them but the bees seem to love them! 🐝🐝🐝🌻
*~SMARTPHONE USER? TRY GOOGLE LENS :D ~*
If you’re taking photos with your phone and have access to the internet then you can use an awesome tool called “Google Lens” to try and identify your plants 👀🌿
Here’s a quick tutorial for you to check out :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTcxLZnv9fg
I can’t wait to see what you all find! :D
Have a bunch of fun out there, stay safe & happy plant hunting!
https://forms.gle/tSRzfxpQJvvYpZXh6 Feedback & Ideas Form, Share your ideas!
Tagging the Hobby Zone subcommunity tag list
(If you want to be added/removed click here!)
@Aliceiin3rdwonderland @BlueRiver5968 @ChildGoddessFlute @Fristo @HealingTalk @Lou73 @MistyMagic @Paprika001 @sweetrosa1987 @WorriedMagpie
I saw this pretty fella in a garden as I was walking past, I don't think I've seen one before but then, maybe I've never noticed! Doing this challenge is making me really look 🌱👀
This is a hydrangea aspera ☺️🌺 it's apparently native to the Himalayas and China so It must have come from a garden centre! Might have to grab one at some point it's so pretty!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrangea_aspera <~ linky if you'd like to know more 💚🐦🌿
@WorriedMagpie We have a blue one here but we had to put netting around it because the deer kept eating it 😕 They're so pretty!
@mytwistedsoul
@mytwistedsoul
Oooh this is more like the one in my garden! :D except mines bright pink :> such pretty flowers and this blue one is so delicate looking, id be impressed if there was a deer eating mine on the front doorstep though XD
@mytwistedsoul
:O deer in your garden! I imagine that sounds less magical when it happens often and they eat your plants XD - but still :O <3
@WorriedMagpie I usually end up yelling at the deer lol! They have the whole woods to munch through! If they'd eat the weeds it wouldn't be so bad but they have stripped shrubs - azaleas and rhododendrons to the point that the plants didn't survive. Plus I have a great fondness for Lilies and have dozens of different ones growing but lilies are like candy to deer and they will eat them :/
@mytwistedsoul I understand your woes... Roses, buddleia, beans, strawberries, sunflowers, hibiscus, young fruit trees, they just eat anything that is soft and tasty. I made a small fence around the vegetables and the fruit trees, at least. It looks ugly, but it seems to work.
@cloudySummer They even eat the leaves off the rhubarb! I thought the leaves were poisonous! We put netting around most of the stuff this year but some noses still manage to sneak in here and there lol *smh*
Hey guys! 💚🌿🐦
I have another mystery for you! I was away at my partner's aunties and spotted this in their garden 😁
it's so pretty but I can't Google lens it 🤔 it didn't have a smell but it was this beautiful blue colour all over and it was grown in a windy English garden so must be pretty hardy 🤔🌱
I'm totally stumped on this one and forgot to ask before we left ! 🤦😅
If anybody knows what this is you shall receive many thanks and lots of cookies 🍪🍪🍪 ☺️
Big love magpie 💚🐦
Does anyone know why attaching a photo does not work? I am uploading a plant image on the mobile app, it does not show up.
@recliningfate I'm sorry - I wish I did. There's been a few other people who have been having trouble with uploading pics on the app :/
I've been looking through the site hoping to find something that can help figure it out but so far no luck
Cool thread. Tomorrow (if it doesn't rain all day), I'll look closer and share some of the stranger plants in my back yard. We've got a space in the back we're just letting nature take it's course. Here's a couple shots from taking a walk around one of my favorite places at the 'bottoms' not far away...
Top one is a shot from a little farther away. The bottom one is a close up of what looks like baby trees. These are all over the place. Maybe they're just bushes.... have no idea. Love the shade of green in them.
@EmbStitcher33 Those are baby oak trees :)
I have a thing for lilies - so I wanted to share some toad lilies
https://www.plantdelights.com/blogs/articles/tricyrtis-toad-lily-bulbs-hirta
These are beautiful!
@recliningfate Thank you! 🙂
@mytwistedsoul wow those look more orchid than orchids lol! Thanks for sharing with us all!
Listening - One Step At A Time!
@MistyMagic They do look alot like orchids. Which is good because I have no luck growing orchids lol
@mytwistedsoul
:0 wow these are beautiful! I've never seen Lillie's quite like that, there a few varieties here I'll have to try and scout some out! 💚🐦
@WorriedMagpie
And wow they have such a rich history! I forget how old some plant species are, kinda assume the wierd ones I don't recognise are more man made?/ Geneticed 🤔🌱
@WorriedMagpie Thank you :) sounds like a real cool adventure or a treasure hunt!
This is Peperomia Napoli Nights. It is a small bushy plant that creates snake-like flower spikes. I have enjoyed seeing it grow over the months and it was a surprise to notice it needs quite strong light, I had previously placed it on my desk which receives little night, its growth was not as flourishing.
The leaves have an interesting pattern.
@recliningfate Oh - hey, and I was thinking of getting one, because it says everywhere they don't need a lot of light... Did it just stay small (which is desirable for me) or did it get sick?
Hello,
It was sickly, the leaves were discoloured and its growth was really impaired, it did not grow new leaves and it looked like it would not go on for too long. I found that it does require quite a lot of light.
Thanks, that's helpful info!
Little light*
@recliningfate Do the little spike actually flower? Or are they just spikes? I actually have one of these that is doing the spike thing right now. I was just curious if that's all it does
The spikes contain small greenish flowers but this is their appearance, the little dots are the flowers. I would say the flowers are not the spotlight. The shape of the flowerspikes is interesting to me.
Have no idea what these leaves are. Went walking around the back and found these mysterious leaves...
lol... here's the picture
@EmbStitcher33 Reminds me of violet leaves... what geographical area are you in? (roughly)
@cloudySummer
Yeah, that could be it. In the spring we have violets all over the backyard. Well, at least where there's sun. I think you're right, now that I think about it.
@EmbStitcher33 Ours here are much, much smaller :) But at least the odorata kind smells wonderfully.
Violets💜
The hanging pot contains Brassavola Cucullata. It is a cattleya orchid species and the pendant thin leaves are amazing to me. This plant has been quite vigorous, I had no roots in the beginning, placed it in the normal setup and it grew roots immediately. I felt this was an achievement for me. It has also grown three new leaves since it arrived. I will offer an update about flowers.
Orchids have been a challenge and they help give me confidence when I figure out their growth.
This is my ICU (intensive care unit) setup. I feel quite proud of taking action for sickly orchids (since some were lost in the past due to not knowing how to implement this). It is a glass cloche with sphagnum moss on the bottom to increase humidity which helps promote root growth. I have three plants in here (A small cattleya Little Hazel, Cattleya Cosmic Delite, Oncidium Holm's Wizard) which have had issues with root promotion and I noticed that since placing them in here, one has 2 little extra root bumps on the new growth. So it works! I also take time to allow some air in 2 times per day.
The quality is not great, I might reupload them (can't do so on my phone) from a cloud drive.
The smaller version for now.
@recliningfate I love the set up and will see if I can use it myself. I have had some luck with orchids, and some beautiful blooms year after year but then they seem to really fade. Thanks for sharing!
Listening - One Step At A Time!
Glad you found it useful, Misty! What helped me is learning from Miss Orchid girl on YouTube, she provides insight and has experience with over 400 orchids. They need some fertilizer maintenance to last through the years. (Orchids apparently can live forever)
(this is valid more for sympodial orchids)