Suburban Nature vs. House-Based Nature

There has been a lot of suffering by the plants as the summer has progressed. We move all houseplants outside during the summer as to give them nice air and sun while the weather's good. If I lived somewhere where it was nice all year round I don't know that I would have house plants- having them outside is lovely.

During the move and the summer, I got gradually used to the new demands of my 27 houseplants, no longer crowded on shelves in my south facing window at the dorm.

Towards the end of the school year I got some cool looking hens and chicks. all different colors all different sizes- they have pretty much unilaterally shrunk off and turned green. At my house there's the front porch- a brick oven of direct sunlight- and the back porch, a shady half lit twinkle paradise for shade loving moisture needing plants. My hens and chicks hate it in both places. In the front they get scorched. In the back they don't get enough sun and grow up up up and away out of their containers to grab the light.
Before:

After:



My kalanchoe has been nibbled and chewed on to excessive proportions- perhaps the shock will do the thing good. I need to chop it back like you're supposed to do every year. so far this summer besides getting eaten it has exploded to mammoth proportions. I have a kalanchoe bush on my hands back there.
Before:

After:



the Jades aren't doing well either. With all the rain they've doubled in size- right little trees back there- but they have been prey to deer...squirrels maybe a woodchuck or some kind. My favorite has but three leaves going for it now and it barked all up from the trauma.

My Christmas cactus was also shredded. I found it one morning broken in half on the ground, half of it unceremoniously chewed off and in pieces. The leaves grew roots, although the plant has looked decidedly shabbier since. Finally I brought Old Betty (a Christmas cactus) in- it too was getting ravaged- the damn thing was twenty or thirty years old I couldn't stand to let it get chewed to death after owning it for a month. A woman at work was moving and couldn't take it with her. It grew a bud from all the water and barked up from all the chewing but it seems to do ok on the tv cabinet by the window where it ended up inside.


this bottom one is my mom's prized christmas cactus with coral flowers. She hasn't seen it yet. when she does she will either cry or curse or maybe go squirrel hunting.

Surrounding the tastier plants with Aloes (which are growing like ragweed and overflowing their pots) which the animals seem to hate with a passion seemed a good way to stop the nibbling. Strategically placed spider plants, aloes and snake plants are keeping the animals away from the more tender succulents; the jades are hanging in there. I moved them inside- all the hurricane rain in the last three weeks has pretty much borderline root rotted a lot of them, we;ll let them dry out and pray they beat the other pest- My plant nibbling cats.

Winner: Suburban Nature has decimated the house nature, chewing, tearing and infecting it with a fiery passion i had not know deer, squirrels and mites to have before this long wet summer.