DIY at Home Moss Pole for Training a Cheese Plant

The finished product

I finally got my hands on a Monstera AKA a Cheese Plant, the most 1970s’ of houseplants. It’s tropical, palmesque leaves are very trendy right now, and Ikea have medium sized Monstera plants for £15 in their garden department. 

Cheese Plants have aerial roots, which sprout from the ‘branches’, and your plant will try to grow out horizontally and take over as much space as it can.  

I Googled and came across a great blog post on the blog Green Obsessions, about how to construct a pole for your Monstera’s roots to instead climb up, which will give height to the plant. 

It’s pretty easy and involves bamboo rods, the lining of hanging baskets and twine. You can read all about it over on her blog, click through here, she explains the process over there. I followed her directions and carefully trained my plant and hopefully it will begin to climb the pole. I will release the bindings a little once the roots start to take to the pole properly. Green fingers crossed!

Ikea Sommar 2019 Bringing the Sunshine This Easter

£12.75 with Ikea Family Member Price £15 Regular

We took an early morning trip to Ikea this Easter Monday to pick up some Gardening bits and pieces. I ended up getting a couple of small house plants, colourful pots which were £1.25 each, and Smix got a mini aloe plant for his room.

I really wanted to get one of the Sommar 2019 picnic baskets, but couldn’t find one, and they said they were out of stock as it’s proving so popular and I can see why, it’s adorable! Hopefully I can find one next time I’m in store as I want to use it in the kitchen as storage as it’s so bright as cheerful.

The rest of the Sommar Collection has napkins from 85p, and sets of six glasses for £3.40. There’s a cute little teapot for £7.65 and glass bottles with stoppers for £2.13, and smaller sizes too. You can also get some very snazzy trays for £2.98 and £1.70.

There are lots more products in the collection like plastic cups, cutlery etc you can use over the spring and summer for picnics and BBQs, or to use in your caravan. I also love the retro floral door mat (bottom right above), it’s all so 1970s’ retro cool.  

Intriguing Vintage Swedish Educational Book I Found Being Used As a Prop In IKEA Belfast

I remember as a child always being intrigued when on visits to Texas, the predecessor of Homebase, by the fake props they would have to stage the pretend living rooms and bedrooms. The false televisions, the plastic video players and fake books, all staging to help you imagine their sofas and tables they were selling for your own rooms back home.

IKEA does the same, but with their wider range of products they can stage more realistic rooms with their own products from other departments, so you can picture a more homelier home.  

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We were browsing the children’s department in IKEA Belfast back in the autumn when I spotted something that looked out of place, a book that was older than the usual books placed in the kids’ bedrooms. It was in what I assume is Swedish and appears to be an educational book from the 60s or 70s. The illustrations are similar to the Childcraft English language educational books that I collect. I thought I would share them here, as they are after all very kitsch.

Maybe next time you are in IKEA Belfast you can see if you too can spot this mysterious book in the Kids’ Department.