This is Groot.

He’s had a bit of a checkered past – I stole/borrowed/liberated him from my workplace when 3 of his 4 trunks had died, with the sole intention of bringing him back to life.

That part’s worked out surprisingly well thus far, especially given my track record of murdering plants.

I knew he could be saved because even though his 3 siblings had died, he was growing leaves from the bottom – he was an anarchist and I liked that about him. He clearly had the will to live and I thought that even I might struggle to finish the job of his assassination.

This time last year he only had a quarter of the foliage he has now.

 

 

It turns out that he only needed these things to thrive:

1. Plant food
2. Plenty of sunshine
3. Less air conditioning drying out his leaves
4. Tender loving care
5. The 8 litres of water stagnating at the bottom of his pot to be dumped out

It looks like he was being given an entire watering can of water every day in the office… I only noticed this when he started overflowing and leaving a puddle on the carpet.

I wasn’t particularly covert about dragging him out of the office, pouring out the water and transplanting him into my car… but he’s my pride and joy now so if anyone asks for him back, I’ll offer to buy a new replacement in exchange. I can’t imagine that anyone would want a lopsided fig tree decorating their office anyway (apart from me, obviously).

So, this is Groot. My wonky ficus.

You may be wondering why the hell I’m telling you all about my liberated plant, especially as this is a book blog- and well you might!
This is a cry for help, not for me, you understand, but for poor Groot (I name my houseplants and talk to them, I’ve already accepted that I’m beyond help). He has *gasp* plant scale.

That’s right. My baby has tree chlamydia. It’s highly contagious among plants, my fern Gary has it too but ferns have been around since the time of the dinosaurs so I have much more confidence in his ability to get on with it.

That brown blob in the middle of the closest branch is actually a scale, formed 3 days after I meticulously cleaned every single twig.

Plant scale is caused by bugs which leech the sap of plants, they then form a scale to protect themselves from predators and angry bloggers with pesticide sprays.

The cry for help is this:

Any gardeners out there with any tips for getting rid of plant scale?

I don’t want to prune the poor guy unless I have to, he’s been naked long enough!

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help.