Black Thumb, Green Thumb

It's been awhile since I've had any plants in the house. Between my black thumb and the dust created by hubby's remodeling projects, the poor things are pretty much doomed from the get-go. But I read an article about the health benefits of having oxygen-creators in homes, so off we went to Osh for a few victims specimens. 
  
I knew I wanted a ficus - they're hearty enough to stand a fighting chance of surviving here - and Marie (who just happens to be the gardening manager at Osh) also talked me into a braided money tree. 
 
Myth/legend/feng shui aside, it's a pretty little tree, and I love the twisty, braided trunk.
 
Leia and I each got an African Violet. 
 
Thanks to self-watering pots 

and my MIL's careful instruction many years ago when she had her amazing, award-winning violets,  
 
I'm fairly confident in my ability to keep these alive.
 
Temporarily, anyway. Sigh. Just to be on the safe side, I let Leia do most of the planting, hoping her thumb is greener than mine.


I also fell hard for these indoor daisies (and the pretty pot.) Love the colors,
 
plus they are tall enough to let Leia play 'now you see me, now you don't'.
 
An 'air plant' - Tillandsia - for the kitchen, 

  

and some gerbera daisys and chrysanthemums for the yard rounded out today's haul.

 
I'm hoping my plant mojo has improved, but even if these plants don't make it, Leia and I had a great time playing in the dirt. And making memories with my Monkey is the most important thing of all.

P.S. Leia decided the plants need a little something more. She brought in rocks from the front yard, decorated each one individually, then placed the rock with "its" plant. She had very definite opinions about which rock went with which plant.

Looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics to me.

Want to guess what Leia's favorite thing to write is, after her own name, of course?
ADDY!