Window Sill Gardening

I don't live at 2 CC most of the time, and there isn't a proper place for gardening where I live. But flowers and greenery area a must for anyone's life! So, this is where windowsill gardening takes place.
I have a changing collection of flowers and plants that live on my windowsill. It's not the ideal place for most flowers, as I have learnt over time - it's mostly too hot and stuffy in my room even with the window open (and don't worry, the radiator is kept off!) But there are certain plants that do pretty well.

Let's introduce you to my plants. From left to right, I have:

A Christmas poinsettia. Now, this one is looking a little sad. Almost all the red has gone from the leaves. I know that you are supposed to keep poinsettias in dark for something like 16 hours a day in order to keep the differentiation in colour, but it seems like far too much effort to me. But, it does mean that you end up with rather sad looking plants like this one...

This basket is doing a lot better (although not a great photo!) There's still a lot of red on the leaves - although all the new leaves have come out completely green. It's a lovely basket - poinsettia and ivy (which you can't see very well.)

Now comes the start of my newest addition to my windowsill garden. It's a beautiful planter, covered in birch bark with a variety of little plants in it. I don't actually know what this one is! But it seems to be doing fairly well. A very nice vibrant yellow.

 

Next along in my planter is this beautiful gerbera. It's coming along really nicely - lots of buds still to come out, and a lovely colour.

Grape hyacinths! I love grape hyacinths - one of my favourite flowers I think. They don't have the same intenseness to the smell that hyacinths do, but they are completely beautiful in miniature. I often have some "real" hyacinths in my windowsill garden, but they go over so quickly, and I don't have one at the moment. When these are over, they will be sent home to 2 CC to plant out in the garden - there's a whole row of plants that have been "donated" from my windowsill garden over the past few years!

Also, you can see in the background two little wooden tulips - very sweet!

This is my peace lily - it's doing okay, although a few of the bottom leaves are a bit yellow. No flowers this year - not sure how to make it flower again. This was a present from A's choir about two years ago, and it's very special to me.

And this is my Cambria orchid that was an Easter gift from A! We (unknowingly) bought each other the same orchid for Easter! Sadly, it's not doing very well - I'm not sure if it's the environment in my room or what, but the flowers are just shrivelling up. I'm doing everything I'm supposed to (according to that oracle, the internet) but it just doesn't seem very happy... Cambria orchids are notoriously hard to care for, apparently, so maybe next time we should just be a bit less adventurous...

So, there we have it! Without a garden, go for windowsill gardening - it's a lovely sunny day here, so I hope that the flowers are all coming out at 2 CC.