About a week ago I came across this post by @babeltrips about choosing the best indoor plants and it reinforced my desire to begin my homesteading journey.
On Sunday, I eventually bought three different plants from a garden close by one of which is the Madagascar periwinkle. The seller had no idea what it's called which was weird to me so I had to google it when I got home. I really liked it because of its beautiful pink flowers and the seller said it's easy to care for.
He said to water every three days with two cups of water and leave it outside to drain properly before taking it into the house. That sounded easy and I watered immediately I got home as instructed.
I placed it in my living room with the other plants where barely any sunlight gets to.
This is what it looked like the first night
On Tuesday morning, I noticed the few yellow leaves got even more yellow and I began to panic. So I opened the curtains to at least get some sunlight in. The next day which makes it three days since I watered it, I watered it again. I had lost one flower and the flower buds were less pink than they were the first night.
What it looks like at day three
I feel terrible it looks this way mainly because I did no research about how to care for it and relied on the words of a seller who doesn't even know the names of his plants. It's a flowering plant and essentially needs sunlight to thrive, I didn't even need Google to know that 🤦♀ I'll take mine outdoors for sunlight henceforth, and hopefully, I see a positive change soon.
Two cups of water seem to be too much as the soil is still soggy hours after drainage and the plant doesn't thrive well in soggy soil. I also found out it doesn't like cold temperatures. It only tolerates a minimum of 16 degrees celsius and needs an average of 18-29 degrees. As for fertilizers, it needs a balanced water-soluble fertilizer diluted by half.
Madagascar periwinkle is said to have a lot of health benefits like treating diabetes, cancer, healing wounds, and curing skin problems like eczema and abscesses. It also enhances memory and eases anxiety and stress. It's a very beautiful plant that's perfect for indoors.