Houseplant clinic: how can I restore my cheese plant's shine?
My Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa) has survived for years, but recently the leaves have become dull and lost their gloss.
Diagnosis
Swiss cheese plants are renowned for their lush, naturally glossy leaves. However, they can lose their sheen because of dust accumulation, unsuitable potting conditions, or stress, often linked to watering habits or inadequate nutrients.
Prescription
Repot your plant into well-draining compost enriched with organic matter and perlite or bark chips. Regularly wipe the leaves gently with a damp cloth. Ensure consistent watering, only when the top inch of soil feels dry to the touch. And ensure the plant is exposed to bright, indirect light to support healthy growth.
Prevention
Gently dust the leaves every few weeks, and keep your plant well fed with occasional doses of diluted liquid fertiliser during the growing season. With suitable soil, proper watering, good airflow and careful cleaning, your Swiss cheese plant should regain its natural, healthy glossiness.
Got a plant dilemma? Email saturday@theguardian.com with 'Houseplant clinic' in the subject line
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The Guardian
4 days ago
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Houseplant clinic: how can I restore my cheese plant's shine?
What's the problem? My Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa) has survived for years, but recently the leaves have become dull and lost their gloss. Diagnosis Swiss cheese plants are renowned for their lush, naturally glossy leaves. However, they can lose their sheen because of dust accumulation, unsuitable potting conditions, or stress, often linked to watering habits or inadequate nutrients. Prescription Repot your plant into well-draining compost enriched with organic matter and perlite or bark chips. Regularly wipe the leaves gently with a damp cloth. Ensure consistent watering, only when the top inch of soil feels dry to the touch. And ensure the plant is exposed to bright, indirect light to support healthy growth. Prevention Gently dust the leaves every few weeks, and keep your plant well fed with occasional doses of diluted liquid fertiliser during the growing season. With suitable soil, proper watering, good airflow and careful cleaning, your Swiss cheese plant should regain its natural, healthy glossiness. Got a plant dilemma? Email saturday@ with 'Houseplant clinic' in the subject line
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Daily Mail
She'd endured every mother's worst nightmare, but was it a poisonous feud with the 'village witches' over her craft shop that drove a healthy Brit, 65, to end her life in a Swiss suicide clinic?
She smiled sweetly in pastel cardigans, chatting gently about yarn weights and showing off her stitched creations. But when crochet queen Amanda Machin revealed she had checked herself into a Swiss suicide clinic, what unravelled was more knotted than the trickiest tangle of thread. The 65-year-old - known to her 50,000 online followers as crafting influencer Amanda Bloom - recorded an emotional farewell before signing out at the controversial Pegasos clinic, where assisted death is legal even without terminal illness. 'By the time you see this, I'll be with my Jenny,' she said quietly. 'I know this is going to be a bit of a shock.' Amanda's only child, Jenny Machin, died in 2017 from a brain tumour aged just 19. She never recovered from the loss, documenting her grief in heartfelt social media posts over the years. Yet her final months became engulfed in acrimony, bitterness and claims of bullying in the sleepy North Yorkshire village of Bentham, where she had opened a crafting enterprise earlier this year. Within weeks, Amanda Bloom Craft Room had closed down. Beneath a sign announcing the 'temporary closure', someone plastered a sticker that simply read: 'Good!' In a final Facebook post, Amanda accused a 'little group of crafters in Bentham' of making her life 'miserable for months with your bitchy comments, cruel Facebook memes and untrue gossip.' She wrote: 'Please don't think it's ok to pass me in the street with a cheery smile and hello…as if nothing has happened. 'It's not ok. You've cost me my new business, my financial security and my home. 'Please don't kid yourself that what you've done is a bit of harmless fun. It isn't. There are consequences.' In a suicide note, later posted online, she said: 'I just long for Jenny with all my heart….the laughter, the feeling of loving her unconditionally and being so wholeheartedly loved in return. She was the one wonderful thing in my life and without her it's just too hard. 'When I originally applied to Pegasos, I had hoped to go in November…to have one last summer and autumn, and to carry on running my lovely shop for a bit longer, but after the bullying escalated and made my shop feel unsafe to me, I decided to go as soon as possible. 'So I'm done. I give up. I just want to be with my darling girl who was always kind, always compassionate. I don't know what lies ahead. Maybe we'll be together, maybe there's only oblivion.' Amanda continued: 'I've sent letters to my nearest and dearest which hopefully you'll have received before seeing this. Nobody needs to do anything. All the official stuff has been taken care of. 'I know this isn't very rock and roll but I wanted to be sure that I would leave no mess or trauma for anyone to have to deal with. I've been able to plan and be organised. And for myself, I was assured of a certain, dignified, clean, pain free death.' Amanda confirmed in her goodbye that she had applied for assisted suicide after reading an article about another grieving woman who had chosen the same path. Friends say she reportedly paid £10,000 to die on her own terms. The application had been made months earlier, with an original date set for November. But, she wrote, harassment from locals forced her to bring the date forward. In a suicide note, later posted online, she said: 'When I originally applied to Pegasos, I had hoped to go in November…to have one last summer and autumn, and to carry on running my lovely shop for a bit longer. 'But after the bullying escalated and made my shop feel unsafe to me, I decided to go as soon as possible. 'So I'm done. I give up. I just want to be with my darling girl who was always kind, always compassionate.' Even in death, Amanda's story has bitterly divided her former community in the picturesque Yorkshire Dales. Supporters accused a small group of women of carrying out a 'hate campaign' against the grieving mother, who lived in a £400-a-month charity-run almshouse. One friend told Mail Online that Amanda had been the victim of 'nasty and unceasing bullying from a community of crafters', describing it 'like something from the film 'Wicked Little Letters', only in this story it has ended with somebody's death'. But women accused online as supposedly bullying Amanda insisted the claims could not have been further from the truth. Andrea Taylor, 61, told MailOnline: 'Don't portray Amanda as being this nice, lovely woman who's been upset by the public. 'Bentham has got really good people here. People did try to help her when she first came back and she turned nasty. 'She could be very plausible online - if you only saw the last posts before she died, you'd think 'poor woman.' But believe me, she had a very nasty side. Ms Taylor, a former police employee, added: 'She has followers who are making out me and others are bullies, when we're not. 'We're standing up for good people. And Amanda wasn't. She really wasn't. 'She's taken her own life and I don't wish to sound insensitive, but I'm not having friends that are genuine and caring being upset.' Amanda's supporters, many of whom purchased her popular DIY crafting kit subscriptions, claim she was hounded out of Bentham by a clique of 'pathetic harridans'. One wrote online: 'Your puerile and vile behaviour cost a lovely lady her business, her home and her peace of mind to such an extent that she felt she had no reason to stay alive any longer.' However, MailOnline was told by multiple sources in the market town that Amanda had in turn become hostile to friends who had tried to reach out and support her. Amanda accused a 'little group of crafters in Bentham' of making her life 'miserable for months with your bitchy comments, cruel Facebook memes and untrue gossip' Following the closure of her shop, the windows of Amanda's shop were covered with sheets of A4 paper bemoaning 'bullying' and affirmations such as: 'Blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make your shine any brighter' One, a woman aged 79, was injured at her high street shop in April after Amanda was said to have slammed a door on her hand. North Yorkshire Police was reportedly investigating. Shortly after, the cosy yellow-fronted shop shut permanently. Soon its windows were covered by Amanda with sheets of A4 paper bemoaning 'bullying' and affirmations such as: 'Blowing out someone else's candle doesn't make your shine any brighter'. Amanda wrote on Instagram in May: 'I was hoping that the bullies would have moved on by now but they haven't, so I'm just keeping to myself for these last few days until I can leave Bentham. 'I'm so sorry to let you down but it's just not worth the aggro.' Retired textiles crafter Lynne Massey, 69, claimed Amanda turned against her after the pair both moved to Bentham in 2020. She said: 'I did my best but she disliked me from the beginning. I didn't do anything against her. 'She told me never to speak to her, so I didn't, and then she told everybody I was ignoring her and not speaking. 'It was like this for four years. 'She upset me, but I put that out of the way. But there were people in my community that she was having shouts and screams at. Once she came out of the shops and called me a tatty-headed, scruffy old bitch. 'She's upset so many people. I stopped going out for quite a while, just kept to myself. 'I thought 'I don't need this hassle'. I'm too old for it.' Amanda's mental health struggles were not new, according to those that knew her. In 2010, she hit headlines when she accused an Anglican vicar of fleecing her out of £160,000 during a time of severe depression after her marriage broke down and her sister died. She claimed he told her to stop taking antidepressants and instead offered 'deliverance ministry' to expel demons, telling her to make a list of everyone she had ever had sex with, and burn it. 'I was so low and believed he was the only one who could cure me, so I did whatever he said,' she alleged at the time. 'He has fleeced me out of thousands and robbed my daughter and I of our financial security.' Amanda's social media profiles are awash with claim and counterclaim, with those accused of bullying being blamed for her decision to end her life. One former neighbour suggested that some residents were angry that she had opened a crafting business, when one was already operational in the town. They said: 'There was already a craft shop and some people thought she was taking business away. But she wasn't selling things. She was running classes, trying to find happiness after her daughter died. 'It sounds pathetic but there are some horrible old bitches in the village.' Another suggested there was consternation that Amanda had been housed in accommodation designated for the destitute, despite appearing to be able to pay rent and rates for her business premises. NHS worker Rachel Martin, from Bentham, spoke in defence of both Amanda and those accused of bullying. In a lengthy Facebook post, she said: 'Amanda was often distressed and hysterical, accusing people of bullying her, stalking her and harassing her. These things never actually happened. 'This whole situation centres around a lovely lady who suffered the tragedy of losing her daughter and struggled with her mental health. 'Her actions were driven by that, but caused a lot of stress and upset to the people who had bent them over a period of many months. 'Those people who did their very best to support a troubled friend are now being vilified online and accused of driving her to suicide.' In Switzerland, where Pegasos operates, there is no requirement for terminal illness to be a factor in approving an assisted dying application - unlike proposed legislation in the UK. Amanda informed friends of her decision via letters sent from the airport. The clinic later confirmed her death to an unknown 'designated contact'. This week, Amanda's one bed cottage had been emptied and a new arrival was due to move in. Neighbour Fred Carter, 88, said he was stunned to learn of her assisted suicide. He said: 'To me, she seemed fine. I used to take in her parcels - loads of them, sewing machines and things like that. I never saw anything wrong with her 'She never said a word to anyone about going or what her plans were. I just can't work it out. But you never know what's going on in someone's mind. 'She was a good neighbour, always spoke nicely. I didn't have a bad word to say about her.' Amanda's best friend, crafter Julie Park, posted online how the pair said a final goodbye before she left North Yorkshire in her campervan for the last time. She said: 'We Facetimed every couple of hours right up until the last time when she was in the clinic. 'And even then, I told her it wasn't too late. I could get a flight and go and get her. 'She could come back here, we could make a she was happy and content and utterly unwavering in her decision. 'The longing for Jenny was overpowering and even if she was heading for oblivion, she said she was walking through a door that Jenny had gone through and that nothing else mattered.' Eight weeks on from Amanda's death, her ashes are still to be returned from Switzerland - a wait that has done little to quell whispers in Bentham that she may actually still be alive. In one of the village's three pubs, one local said: 'It's sad and people want to draw a line under it. 'But there are so many people who don't even believe that she's done it, and that she might just turn back up. 'Nobody knows for sure, do they, that she's gone?' Friends from the crafting community have since raised over £7,000 for a bursary for budding artists. The fund will enable an artist to stand at Yarndale, one of the biggest crafting shows in the UK, held annually at nearby Skipton.
