Urban Jungle Bloggers: My Plant Gang

Welcome to my Urban Jungle Bloggers post for May! The theme this month is My Plant Gang. I have quite a collection of pot plants, but I usually spread them throughout the house or group them in little vignettes. I hadn't actually thought of putting them all together in a gang until I got this month's suggestion, and now I have to ask myself why on earth I didn't think of it earlier :)

I decided to group them all together on top of my vintage china cabinet. It didn't take too long to arrange, perhaps because all my potted lovelies were so happy to be there enjoying each others' company? I added a few little decorative accents... some crochet stones, candles, twine and scissors. And because the cyclamen aren't all flowering yet, I added some sprigs of lavatera to enhance the one cyclamen bloom that is out.

I love the contrasting textures... smooth plant leaves, textured plant leaves. Stone and fibre, glass and wax. Wood and thread. But the colour palette keeps it all harmonious.

I had to put my tiniest plant with the rest of the gang... this little pot is only an inch high! 

The first flower on my gorgeous butterfly cyclamen - it already smells beautiful.

I love the striped leaves on the zebra plant but the new leaves have a lot of white on them. It has been in this not-very-bright position for a couple of months, I may need to try it in a sunnier spot for a while.

I also love the purple-grey leaves of this succulent.

And my new favourite, chain of hearts, keeping cozy in its crochet jacket!

I absolutely love my plant gang together, but there are some empty spaces around the house now. Guess that means I need to go visit the garden centre!

Urban Jungle Bloggers is hosted by Judith at JOELIX.com and Igor at Happy Interior Blog. You can find out more and participate yourself at urbanjunglebloggers.com.

My kitchen shelfie

 Hello again. It's been a while and I didn't really intend to be absent from my blog for two months, but once I let things go it was difficult to get back into the swing of things. I'm still dealing with earthquake repairs to the property and the uncertainty has made it difficult to focus positively on the house and garden, so it's just been easier not to do anything! However, I did start to miss my blog and having a record to look back on, so here I am again.

 A recent email from Gardenista pointed me in the direction of Urban Jungle Bloggers, who do a monthly plant themed styling challenge. This month's theme is My Plant Shelfie. I love a good shelfie and it seemed like a good reason to rearrange the houseplants, which I needed to do for summer anyway. The cyclamens have been banished to a cool dark room and the succulents have come forth.

 On this shelf I have my favourite little handmade houses and an art print of lavender, held in a vintage floral frog. The little brass chair is made from the cage from a champagne bottle.

 This is a new addition, with rather cool, graphical silver and green spotted leaves. It has a bit of attitude, don't you think? The plant label says it's called Scilla or Ledebauria Socialis. It's a nice compact size to fit inside this ramekin.

 I love the silvery green and plum tones on this succulent. It's container is a cat food can wrapped with rope (thank you Pinterest).

 I really love the tarnish and patina on this silver-plated salt shaker. It contrasts most beautifully with the delicate green leaves on this plant. I've had the plant for years and I forget what it's called! It's pretty impossible to kill but the leaves do have an annoying habit of turning brown from the base of the plant outward. I'm thinking of replacing it... does anyone have any suggestions for a similar nice, delicate trailing plant?

Now I'm submitting this post for the challenge. I'm actually very late with it, almost at the deadline in fact but I'm calling it a win that I even got the post written at all :) Thanks to Igor at Happy Interior Blog and Judith at Joelix.com for the prompt!