We’re starting off the year with a purge of plants and garden supplies I no longer need or love. Clearing my space of items I don’t use always make me feel more peaceful and ready to start doing all the things I want to do this year.

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hey everyone I am so excited because today we purge I don’t know if anyone else is as excited as I am about getting rid of things but it’s my favorite thing to do at the beginning of the year I go through closets I go through cabinets I go through everything and I always have extra time in January so I like to get my space cleared out and ready for the next year so what I’m going to do today is go through everything in this room I’m going to start with house plants because although there are some house plants that are in here that I appreciate I don’t love them and I really like to have a space with things I truly truly love and not just things that are kind of sitting around taking up space so I’ll do that first and then I’m going to go through every single drawer every single shelf in this room which is mostly my garden supplies and see if there’s anything I don’t need I know off the top of my head there’s stuff that I got like 3 years ago thinking that I was going to use and never did so all of the things that I’m getting rid of are going to go to good home I already have some friends that I know want some of my plants and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to easily find people that’ll take some of the gardening stuff too so I have my coffee I’m going to start with the plants so I’ll bring those over and this first one I feel probably the worst about getting rid of but again I know it’s just not something that I love having it’s my lemon tree I’ve had this tree I can’t remember if it’s been three or four years but I know it spent a few Winters in here and I originally got a lemon tree because I just thought how cool would it be to grow lemons in Chicago but it’s just not happy it’s happy when it’s outside and then every time I bring it inside for the winter which is really between the months of like October to May so it’s inside for half of the year it’s very dry in here it’s not as humid as a lemon tree would like I do have it under a grow light but it still just doesn’t thrive every winter I get pest issues typically it’s scale I think I maybe got spidermites one year too and productivity of a lemon tree isn’t great compared to other things that I grow in my garden so like I said I’ve had this for a few years I think I’ve got a total of six lemons from it maybe and from the time a lemon starts to form on the tree till when it’s ready to eat it’s about 9 months so it’s a very long time it’s not like you know Tom plant where it starts producing and just continues to produce throughout the season so for me getting three lemons a year isn’t really worth the six Monon struggle to keep it happy indoors now I know that the larger it gets obviously the more lemons it’ll produce but that’s another issue is that as this gets larger it’s going to be more and more difficult for me to get inside over winter I mean at some point depending on the container size and how tall the tree is it might not easily be able to be moved inside and I don’t really have another option other than that I don’t have a greenhouse I don’t have a sun room it has to come in here and I have to be able to carry it in here so for those reasons my lemon tree is going to a new home you can also see that like some of the leaves are yellowing I just haven’t been keeping up as regularly on the task to keep it happy because again it’s not something that I love so I’d rather have the plants that if they’re going to take more effort to keep happy that it’s a plant I truly love and unfortunately as much as I’ve enjoyed this lemon tree it no longer fits in that category so this is going to go to a friend’s house who actually does have a sun room and I think it’s going to be much happier there I’m also excited because that means I can still visit this lemon tree even though it’s no longer mine I’m also hoping that she can nurse it back to health so this is going to be the first thing going now the next category of house plants that I’m kind of over and I’ve known this about myself for a long time and yet I keep doing it is plants in small pots so the smaller the pot the more often they have to be watered I usually check my plants moisture levels about once a week and I’d say for the most part I can get by with only watering my small containers once a week but it almost feels like they’re kind of just clutter lying around not so much fitting into the decor I mean some of them do some of them don’t so what I’m going to do now is grab all of those small pot plants or at least the ones that I want to get rid of and there’s actually a couple things I might do other than donate them so let me go grab those and we’ll talk through the mall okay let’s go through the other plants that I have here so first of all I’d say my all-time favorite plant is the string of hearts house plant and specifically the variegated string string of Hearts because that one is pink and I currently have two that are maybe like 6 in and one very small one because I love that one so much I’m going to keep it now I do have here two smaller nonv variegated string of Hearts plants which these are just green I still love these they’re like second place behind the variegated one but I have a small one already and a larger 6in one I don’t need all of these now I’ve ever only purchased one variegated string of heart plant and one non-v variegated so all of these smaller plants are propagations so it’s not even like I bought them they were made from cuting of other plants so I’m not as tied to these and these kind of fall into the category of just laying around kind of in the way they don’t have a spot that really fits in with the decor and when I first got my string of Hearts we had south facing windows in the place that we were renting these just don’t really get enough light to be happy so they have to get supplemental light from my grow lights and I don’t want to have these just all shoved together under one grow light so for that reason these are going to go to a friend so I’m going to put these over here now I have some that I’m going back and forth on and I might do something different than just giving them away but still reducing the amount of plans I have this is my String of Pearls I actually have had a giant unvaried String of Pearls so this one is variegated cuz it has the white on the little peas here um and then one day I Saw an Ant crawling up the Shelf where it was and I was like oh that’s interesting and then I got closer and it was like hundreds of ants crawling into the plant it was a maybe like 10 in it was a pretty big pot size there was just a whole ant colony living inside of it so that plant quickly went outside and got thrown away um the these I got cuttings from someone and this is it’s hard because again these don’t get enough natural light in here they’re under a grow light I do like them but they’re kind of just in the way and I feel like this might serve someone else better who has a better lighting situation so I think this one is also going to be donated I do love the pot though too so that’s why it’s hard and I’m going back and forth hopefully by the end of this video I’ll make a decision next up is thisf now this is a pink plant and I love pink plants it’s in a smaller container so again kind of just feels like it’s in the way so what I’m going to do is not give this away but I think I’m going to consolidate and that might be the plan for the rest of these and what I mean by that is I think I’m going to plant this into this pot with the Palm neon they’re not the same plant but they look similar enough that I think they’ll go nicely together there’s also some unhappy leaves I need to cut off here but I know need to pot this plant up because it needs to be watered more than the once a week that I check and for a pot this size it should be able to last a week between watering so what that typically means is that it is way too root bound and I need to pot it up so I think I’m going to do that today pot this up into a larger pot it’s actually in a nursery container inside of this ceramic pot which I like to do because it’s easier to pot and repot I just hope I have another Nursery container kind of the next size up that still fits in this pink planter so when I do that I will also add in this with it so that’s the plan for that I’m still technically getting rid of a plant or reducing the number of plants that I have but I’m still keeping this plant so move those over there then next I like the way that these do hang over my shelves so I do kind of go back and forth on this um I think I’m going to wait until the end and see what I want to do but these are filad dendrin Brazil’s I like these for trailing on shelves because because they’re so thick that they almost completely cover the pot and it just looks really pretty so I don’t know maybe once I reduce down these other small pots I’ll be happier to continue to water these two small pots so we’ll hold on those and then the other one that I’m going to consolidate is this poos plant I also love posos for trailing down shelves I’d say a posos grows longer faster compared to a filad dendrin but the filad dendrin tends to be bushier and cover the pot more easily so those are the main differences I see between these two if you’re trying to decide on a trailing plant but I think I’m going to add this into my hanging posos plant that I have because I want to add some length there so I’m thinking I’ll do the plant tasks first and then we’ll go ahead and go through all of the cabinets in this room but these are the plants that I am planning to give away away consolidate and then we’ll see how I feel about these two now since I’m going to give them away to people I still have to keep them around here for a while and take care of them until they get them but at least I’ve kind of e marked these and I can put them all in the same place all right we’re going to pot up this pink pot first and unfortunately I did go through all of the nursery pots that I have stored in my closet this one would be the only one that would be the next size up and unfortunately it doesn’t fit in here now something I have done in the past which you can do if you want is to take scissors and just cut around so that it fits inside the pot but this also doesn’t go all the way down and I don’t want to waste that space so I’m just going to plant directly into the ceramic pot and it does have a drainage hole luckily which means I have to make sure that I set it on top of a saucer before I water it but we’re going to plant these together because I really do like the pink and the green on this pot matches the pink and the green on these plants so I definitely want to keep it in here so let’s go ahead and pop this up I have my container of soil here which is again just a trash can and let’s just start pouring you in I know that some soil will come out of the drain hole while I’m filling it but that’s what cordless vacuums are for and I’m going to try not to just throw it on the ground like that all right let’s check the height on that I think that’s a good depth for the bottom layer so going to pop out the ne NY I need to work more on my house plant pronunciations let’s get oh can you see all the roots growing out of the bottom it’s definitely root bound and that’s why it was going through water so quickly okay now because I’m putting two in here going to kind of position this one to the side break up some of the roots and let’s see I actually well no I do have my posos and filad dendrin curtain but for the most part I don’t really mix plants together they each kind of go in their own spot but when I think of gardening usually in a container I’m mixing and matching plants together so I’m excited to see how this goes like it might even be nice oh I have some Ivy but I only have one but like having Ivy or something triling down the side now if you are combining plants together in a pot you want to make sure they have the same care requirements so light moisture all of that um but other than that you can plant whatever plants you want together so taking out the nephtis here that has some big chunky Roots doesn’t look too root bound but got some big nice Roots there this [Music] one I think would fit nicely kind of poking out the side ah do I want to add a third one I feel like three might be good but I don’t know if I have anything should I put should I put one of my Fender in Brazil’s in here I’ll need go grab it and see what I think this one is definitely root bound and what’s easy about the smaller pots is that let’s say I do miss having this I can quickly water propagate some more from this main plant and create another plant that looks like this fairly quickly but let me oh I think I like that and then I can just continue to trim well depending on where this goes I can continue to trim right at the bottom let me see I think I’m going to go for it just getting these in the position I want and let’s fill it back up all right they’ve all been planted together now in this pot I trimmed off some of the bottom of the filad dendrin some of the not so pretty looking leaves and I think I really like it I don’t have so because I was using a nursery pot before I was using a smaller drainage dish inside this pot so the water wouldn’t run out I don’t have a good saucer for this because not all pots come with saucers for some reason and I know I need to get one probably a plastic one cuz this is going to sit either on the wood floor or on a wood shelf and I want to protect the wood so I just need to find a smaller plastic drainage dish I don’t think I have any of my like vintage glass dishes left but if you ever do get takeout and there’s a plastic lid on on those that often works really well too so let’s move this off to the side um and then go on to the next project well the other plant that I was going to consolidate was the posos but the poos pot I was going to add it to is already too full so that is not going to work so I’m just going to hold on to this one for now um but since I did add the filad dendrin which I thought I was going to keep to that pink pot I now only have I think these two smaller containers left so I think that’s pretty good since I’m done with the plants now we’re going to move on to this room which because it’s connected to the decks where the garden is this is where all the garden supplies are I have almost every single house plant up here so it’s also where all of my house plant supplies are so let me take you around I will open some things up I don’t think anything’s too terrible looking but I guess we’ll see um and then I’m just going to pull out stuff that I no longer need put it all on this table and then go through it with you first up is this closet which has I think everything almost everything for the garden and there are definitely some items in here that I haven’t used in years I do need to clean and organize this but that’s going to be a different day today we’re just getting rid of stuff so if you’d like to see me kind of go through and clean everything uh let me know and I will make a video when I do that but I’m just going to start grabbing things out of here that I know I haven’t used like for example these burlap sacks that I think I originally got to try to protect some pots outside and then never needed to use it and that was 2020 and I haven’t used it since so these are going to go so I didn’t actually take out too much stuff from there a lot of the stuff are things that I use all the time in the garden they just don’t get much use in the winter time but the stuff that I did take out took up quite a bit of space so I have a lot more space in there so when I do organize I’ll be able to kind of put things in a much better place so what I have like I mentioned the burlap then I also got these which are nets to put over your berry bushes so that birds don’t eat the berries and I got these because when I started growing blueberries which I don’t grow anymore I read about how birds Le them so you should get these nets what I’ve realized is that instead of getting the Nets in anticipation for it I should see if that’s actually a problem for me first I don’t know what it is I mean birds get up here but I’ve never had Birds when I did grow blueberries eat any of the blueberries I don’t know if they eat raspberries but they haven’t touched anything in my garden I think the only time I’ve seen them is when I’ve sewn some seeds and then I might see them pecking at the seeds so that’s really the only issues I’ve had so I again I got these in 2020 and have not used them and I know plenty of people so when I donate Garden things I like to reach out to school Gardens and Community Gardens first so I have some contacts there and I’ll basically just send photos and see if they want any of this and if not I also know a lot of local gardeners who I’m pretty sure will be happy to have these next is this Garden bag which I’m pretty sure the first ever garden tool set that I got from Amazon came in this bag I’ve never once used this bag I take all my tools out and just set them on the deck it’s not like I’m really going anywhere far away with this bag and because it is a bag I got on Amazon it’s not like there’s any sort of emotional attachment to it so I think this can definitely go to a better home probably something more like a community garden or maybe a school garden where they are storing their tools inside and have to go quite a bit of ways to the Garden so that will be donated I have is this one or two maybe I only have I it’s like looks like I have two lids and only one bottom but these are little propagation stations are kind of like little green houses that I use for used sort of for propagation or seed starting but I haven’t used them in so long so for seed starting I use the Jiffy trays which those come with their own little Greenhouse so I already have some from that it’s not as tall but again I can’t remember the last time I used this it’s been at least over a year and I just don’t propagate that many plants anymore or if I do I’m using water propagation I’m not putting them underneath a humidity Dome since I don’t know where the bottom for this is I probably shouldn’t still be using it let’s see if it fits this bottom it actually does fit so I mean I could have two different tops for this and give them all someone probably they’ll just want one of these but it does if you are going to do any sort of propagation or seed starting with humidity domes these are great I just I don’t use them so these are also going to be donated then I have a couple of nozzles so this one I have used before in the garden but I’ve found that I like the shower wands better because it allows me to reach down further into the containers so I don’t want one this short anymore it still works fine so again I’m just going to donate this to someone who might need it this one has the multiple options for the different kind of showerheads there so that will be donated and then this so this one is hard because I’ve never used it I got it in a gift bag last year at The Proven Winners event that I went to in Michigan and it’s a dram like hose nozzle which is a great brand the only problem with this is that it’s just a shower head there aren’t other options and I all the time I’m switching between like a shower head I’m using the jet I’m using Mist I’m using different options so I just know that I won’t use this um but the other thing I like that this does have is instead of squeezing and having to hold this the whole time they handle down for the water usually the hose wands come with kind of a switch like this you just flip up or down and then I don’t have to hold it and the water will still run so I love this I know it’s a great brand but I know it’s not something that I’m going to use so I’m going to get this away as well uh last thing I have here are just these plastic containers that in my mind I’m always thinking of like well I can use these for storage I can use these here I can use these there but I don’t need them so could I potentially find use for them somehow maybe but in the last year that I’ve had these containers I think this was a situation where I needed a few and one of the things about trying to find stuff on Amazon is it usually comes in like large packs so I have way too many of these I know I don’t need them because I haven’t found myself using them and so that’s what I tell myself like if I haven’t used them in however long usually a year is good these have been here for three or four years I know that I’m probably not going to use them even if I can think of like 10 different instances where I might it hasn’t happened yet and it’s not like any of these are super expensive where if I get rid of them and then all of a sudden need them that I can’t just replace them so I tell myself you know what Bethany trust yourself that you’re probably not going to use them if you have to replace them at some point go ahead but I would say 95 5% of the time I never end up having to replace them because it was never something that I needed to use so all of this is going to go to a better home now as far as the other places where I store things I do have the Shelf but this is all of my terra cotta pots I use every single one of these every season so I know that all of these pots are going to stay I do have these drawers but I’m pretty sure all of this stuff are things I used too let’s open up and see oh yeah these are all of my supplies for my horiculture class that I took last semester and I’m pretty sure I’m going to need these for the ones I’m taking going forward so that drawer is good I think this is a drawer where I’ve put stuff oh oh I’m glad I opened this I think it’s been a while but these are the labels for the plants that I have so I’m trying to save anything that’s like a perennial and hopefully I don’t kill if I kill it I’ll throw the label away um I also have in here some remotes and then these are all the labels for the bulbs that I planted so assuming they come up I will remember what they are so everything in here is staining then on the other side I have some bookmarks my flower press That’s everything in here and then the final drawer is well kind of collection of things I’ve signed up for a calligraphy online class to try to make my handwriting a little better uh that’s with a handwriting pen that’s some examples with the click pen I mean not terrible but I’m improving slowly um then I have over here some personalized stamps so I got a stamp off of etsy that has my handle on it so that way I think what I’m going to do this year is well I’ve already been doing it when I give gifts to friends from my garden I stamp it I think I’m going to start stamping my giveaway sidewalk bouquet as well so everything in this drawer I’m pretty sure is going to stay yeah paint brushes more ink all of that I use and that’s everything so these drawers are good then really the last place I need to go through are these three cabinets down here so we just got these shelves in July maybe it was a few months before that but basically 2023 everything on the shelves I’ve gone through and I love and I’m keeping but there might be some stuff in here although I haven’t had that much time to clutter up but let’s see let’s see what we’ve got going on in here so I have a lot of things in use either next season like this space I know I’m going to use with dried flowers um some items for some crafts I’m going to make candles that I made that I will use for events I think I’m also going to use some of these as small bases for giveaway bouquets um I have what is this paper oh this is paper that I use for pressed flower art so I think everything in here is good oh another thing I’m going use for a project so this is pretty good much better than I expected this next one has jars I use for either storage or little like the candle votives that I made I have where I store my dried flowers and pressed flowers I have jars here and like spray bottles for anytime I make I know some sort of infusion or room spray but all of this still things I use except I did get these which I think are supposed to be used for Vines I got them last year I didn’t use them but I might actually use them this year so I’m going to wait one more Garden season if I don’t use these I will give them away but everything in here looks like it’s going to stay which is surprising I thought this was going to be Messier when I opened it up all right this cabinet I that there’s some things in here I can get rid of so I’ve basically just been saving all of these jars so I don’t have to buy vases um there’s definitely some pots down here that I don’t love anymore um so for example I think this one and go I this one can also go looking at the vases up here yeah a lot of this stuff is going to be used up next season and gone I think this one too I also just don’t love um so I’m going to scooch over all of the pots that I am keeping make some more room in there I think that’s everything from this one everything else is going to stay so this is everything else I am going to give away that aren’t plants and I feel good I’m not getting rid of a ton of stuff which is nice to see that there are things here that I am using on a regular basis and I like getting anything kind of out of the house that’s just creating clutter so I’m really excited and knowing that these are going to people who will use them also makes it easier to get rid of the items that I have in my house so yeah that’s everything for this video I love cleaning out at this time let me know if you want to see me organizing my garden closet and what’s in there I don’t know if that would be too boring or not let me know um but at least now I’ve cleared up some space so thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video bye

13 Comments

  1. Perfect video for this snowy day is Wisconsin. Blizzard tomorrow. Heard you're getting the same in Chicago. Yes, I would love to see you do a cleanup video. Thanks!

  2. I already pulled the burlap out of the donation pile to use for my holly trees I planted a few months ago as the temperature drops. Of course I'd find a use for them after 4 years right as I'm about to get rid of them šŸ˜†

  3. We need to go through our inventory also and do the same. We’ve been good about not acquiring anymore stuff at least.

  4. Hello, I watched your purge video today. I love to see what you are doing. I am in south Florida. It is sunny today. What size pot do you use for your procut sunflowers?

  5. Thanks for the video. Beside encouraging me to go through my gardening stuff I found new ideas for organizing my garden closet.

  6. Hobbies of Gardening and houseplants totally accumulates a lot of extra stuff. I need go thru my pots and make repotting plan for the spring and decide from there what can go. I’m really focusing on loving the staging and pottery and vessels and trying not to buy too many more plants. 🪓 šŸŽ‰

  7. Thanks for the inspiration! I'm glad that you are going to use the burlap. In southern Wisconsin, we received 5.5 inches of snow on Tuesday, 2 inches on Thursday, 6 inches so far today with more expected. I didn't want all this snow but am thankful with all the extreme cold temperatures expected. I hope that your plants survive our cold.

  8. We all need to give or donate unused items. Haven’t figured out why some people hold on to their unused stuff.

  9. I definitely stopped trying to successfully grow a lemon tree inside half the year. Like you said it’s not worth the struggle and there’s lots of other things that I can be doing with my time and space then using it for that plant. I am in zone 8B Northern California . I’ve recently found you here on YouTube and I really enjoy all of your videos. You are very inspiring!

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