u/MasterOfNog

6 months ago, I introduced you all to Viney, my skeleton trellis for my ivy. A great many of you requested updates every 6 months.

The good news is that my vision is happening. Once I added the grow light, the ivy took off. Every day when I got home from work I checked the new growth to see if it was big enough to wrap around a bone. And up until a month ago, it was growing like crazy.

The bad news is that over the last month, I've been battling a bad spider mite infestation. I would've chucked it, or at least isolated it, but I'm new to houseplants and I want to use this opportunity to learn how to battle them. I've been spraying it about every 4th day with this Protect Neem Oil spray from We The Wild. On spray days and the day after, I point the grow lights up because the directions say to keep the plant out of direct light when the leaves are wet. On the third and fourth days, I give it one grow light.

Now, I understand that spider mites are inductive of a bigger problem. Before the spider mites, I had all the grow lights on the plant. Is it possible that was too much light? That's pretty much the only light it gets since the only nearby window is north facing and the plant is at an odd angle to the window. I water when the moisture meter tells me it's at a 2 or 3, although I have let it get down to a 1 a couple times (fuckin job takin up all my fuckin time). Every time I water I use a half dose of 20/20/20 fertilizer and for this plant I actually use the leftover water that drains out the bottom of my other plants. I figured it's an ivy, these things thrive outside in horrible conditions, what the hell? Anyway, what am I doing wrong?

Also, I think by the end of the year I'm gonna do a small house project and paint this room and replace the white top of the radiator cover the plant sits on with a walnut top like my other tables in the room (this white painted board captures dirt, stains, and shows everything), and I'll have to move Viney to do that so I might end up tossing the plant anyway and starting over with some ivy from the side of my house.

COMING SOON: I bought a dead baby coyote! The bones are degreasing in a bucket in my yard and when they're done I'll send it to another guy for a final cleaning and assembly and then I'll grow more ivy through that. That might not all come together by the end of the year, but I'm very excited! I'd show you the progress on that, but bone soup is pretty disgusting.

I'll be back with another update on November 15th! Thank you all for your kindness and everything from the original post. I'd love to see all of your alternatives to traditional trellises.

P.S. I'm also gonna make a climbing pole for my pothos out of a Newell post, but I have some questions with that. 1) Will pothos cling to painted wood or will I have to leave the finish natural? 2. Let's say I have a pothos vine that's 6ft long and I make the end of that vine root into a little pot of soil that I water like I would for a normal plant. From that point, the vine would continue its journey up the Newell post. Would that help the plant regulate between waterings and stuff, or like if I watered both the pots at the same time would I be at risk of overwatering the plant?