Picture a Day-Day 44

There's someone I've wanted to introduce you all to for a while but other stuff keeps coming up (dry ice has to be sublimated after all). He's a bit shy but is working on that. He even got a bit gussied up for the picture.

Meet Terry, the tree who lives in my office. I bet some of those snowflakes look a touch familiar and the angel was an ornament I got in an ornament exchange at work. I figure he looks wintry enough I'd leave him all nice and decorated.

Terry? Why Terry you wonder. Well I have a strange habit of naming things within about 30 seconds of seeing them. It isn't always plants or animals either. While I've never walked away with a soup can called John or a band-aid dubbed Nick, I do have a rice sock called Gregg.

Poor Terry has been relegated to the rather dull life of my office because we just can't be trusted at our apartment. Last year we had an aloe plant, two things of basil and that box of morning glories. This year, all dead.

Some of it is the apartment, it leaks like crazy by the windows and we don't come anywhere close to facing the sun at really any point. Some of it is the fact we're on the first floor, so we can't put any plants outside or the cursed rabbits just see a 'Salad Bar' and go to town.

But mostly it's just our fault. Going to Chicago for over a week is a good test of the mettle of our plants. Will they survive a week without water? Will one of them boycott and drag potting soil all around the carpet?

I also have a slight fear of re-potting after having every single thing I've ever attempted to re-pot decide to die on me. Perhaps one day I'll realize that I have a black thumb and just give up, but for now Terry seems relatively happy and healthy.

Anyone else trying to raise a healthy little plant or garden but not having much luck?