u/unagrills28

Had this little ionantha for close to a year and it basically just sat there looking fine but doing nothing. No pups, no real color change, just existing in the same spot on my shelf. I was soaking it twice a week, misting daily, the whole routine, and I think that was actually the problem.

Cut back to one proper soak a week (just dunking it in a bowl for about 20 minutes, letting it dry upside down on a towel after) and moved it closer to an east window where it gets a few hours of harsher morning light instead of the soft indirect stuff it had before. Within maybe six weeks I noticed the base looking a little swollen, and now there are two pups poking out that are each close to a centimeter.

I think I'd read too many care guides that all said "mist often, keep it humid" without really talking about how much that depends on your actual air circulation. My apartment runs dry most of the year so the extra misting was probably just sitting on the leaves without evaporating fast enough, which is basically a recipe for rot risk even if the plant doesn't die outright, it just stalls.

Also started giving it way more airflow by running a small fan on low nearby for a few hours a day, not blasting it, just enough to make sure it's not sitting damp after soaking. That felt like the bigger change honestly, more than any light or water tweak.

Curious if anyone else found that backing off the misting schedule did more for growth than people expect. Feels counterintuitive after seeing every post about these things needing constant humidity.

Planted a Colorado blue spruce as a small 18 inch whip back in the spring of 2023, mostly because I wanted something that would eventually block the view of my neighbor's shed without turning into a giant mess like the arborvitae I inherited from the last owner. For the first two years it basically sat there. Maybe two or three inches of new growth each season, needles looking a little dull, and I kept second guessing whether I'd picked a bad spot.

This year something clicked. New candles came in thick and soft green in late spring, and by August I measured almost 14 inches of leader growth plus solid lateral branching. I didn't change much about my routine, just kept up with deep watering during dry stretches and stopped fussing with fertilizer after reading that young spruces mostly need to establish roots before they'll push top growth. Apparently that establishment period really is as slow and unglamorous as everyone says.

Soil here is heavy clay, so I amended the planting hole with some pine bark fines and grit when I put it in, which I think helped drainage more than anything else. No pest issues so far, knock on wood, though I do check the needles every few weeks for spider mites since I've heard blue spruce can be prone to them in drier climates.

Curious if others have seen this same pattern where a young conifer seems to stall out for a year or two and then suddenly takes off. Wondering if it's mostly a root establishment thing or if there's something else going on that I'm not accounting for.

Started on a cheap black Generation whistle about four months ago, mostly working through tunes on YouTube one line at a time. Ornamentation aside, my actual weak point turns out to be breath control way up high. Anything that pushes into that top octave and I either overblow into a squawk or lose the note entirely for a split second.

Tried backing off the air and using more finger pressure instead, which helped a bit, but the real fix seems to be just slowing tunes down until my fingers stop compensating for shaky breath support. Working through "Off to California" right now specifically because it sits up there so much, and it's humbling how differently a tune plays at half speed versus full speed.

Also finally figured out my whistle sounds better warmed up in my hand for a minute before playing rather than going in cold. Not sure if that's actually the metal or just me settling into the right embouchure, but I do it every session now regardless.

Curious if anyone else struggles more with the top octave than with rolls or cuts. Everyone online seems focused on ornamentation technique but nobody talks much about just keeping steady air in that upper register.