nettle

Glad to be helpful :)

Bananas do and will loose their bottom leaves as they grow, so no surprises there.

As you probably know the black flaky stuff on the outside is normal sap, not mildew. As far as u can see there is only mildew present where the frond meats the trunk.

As there is only a small amount of mildew and no signs of rot I don't think the mildew caused the leaf falling off (rather just natural growth). If it gets more chronic mildew it may cause issues in the future. We grow our bannanas outside and powdery mildew between old fronds is a given, and not a concern, however indoor plants are a lot more prone to disease so it may be a worry.

P.s. its not powdery mildew (mildew is white/grey). Its probably just some kinda mold that settled in the crack left by the leaf falling off. I would only be concerned if it is present between young fronds or starts rotting the trunk.

I like the way it seems she's quickly escaping the cameras focus and about to duck behind the tree. It captures her elusive charm.

Makes the photo seem more alive. As if saying "in the corner of your eye you see a red flash above you. You look up, only to see a shaking branch suddenly relieved of weight. And far in the distance is the sound of beating wings."

Sorry for getting that wrong, I'll update it to say parasitic rather than carnivorous. Looks like it might be that species. thank you! Will check on it tomorrow to see how its developed

A whole little world

Eyes can sometimes be less deiceving than marketing material.

my auntie, who has one many awards with her rare orchids, still cant figure out some jewel orchids. My own baby jewel orchid was looking beautiful before it got demolished by spidermites (at the time I thought they were just spiders until it was to late). Next time I'm going to try grow them in a bioactive terrarium hopefully they will be happier.

I'd love to see how your setup turns out and what plants you choose to plant, please post an update when you get them.

Is the LED light a grow light? If not that's fine, most normal white LEDs are just as good or often better than cheap grow lights so don't bother switch.

Its really hard to tell from a photo how bright the light is, but my guess is its medium indirect light, high indirect is still really bright.

I would recommend a maidenhair fern, their leaves look amazing, especially with light shining through and they can handle pretty much any level of indirect light.

Another recommendation would be a hoya, there are lots of varietys some have flashy leaves, and they are easy to look after.

Then if you want a challenge: jewel orchids; these orchids have beautiful iridescent leaves and tend to like high humidity, and low to medium indirect light, unfortunately they are an absolute pain to grow.

I also love mounted elkhorn ferns if you want a splash of weird. Very easy to care for.

I have had surprisingly good results with succulents in low light conditions, they grow very slow but seem to usually do fine.

Yep, the only exception I can think of is if its a ladybird, cos then I find the opposite to be true

You said you got it from online so i did a quick search for matching images and the photo comes from Trees South africa (the watermark that is partly cropped out in your image says this to) according to their website it is Harpephyllum caffrum.

https://trees-sa.co.za/tree/harpephyllum-caffrum/

Higher resolution image is on this sight which further back up it being Harpephyllum caffrum (leaf shape and arrangement match) def not karaka as karaka leaves are shaped differently.

Edit: red --> resolution (stupid auto correct)

I would say it would be fine, the only problem would be warping as the pine will be quite thin (plywood is more resistant to this).

But if you don't care about everything being perfectly straight I think pine would be plenty strong enouph and wouldn't warp noticeably much either (just pick straight boards from the store). So yea I think it would be fine.

P.s. (if you join multiple boards together its usually less likely to warp but I don't think this is necessary for your usecase)

The hairs are naturaly made by the plant and are called trichomes.

The "hairs interfere with the feeding of at least some small herbivores and, depending upon stiffness and irritability to the palate, large herbivores as well. Hairs on plants growing in areas subject to frost keep the frost away from the living surface cells. In windy locations, hairs break up the flow of air across the plant surface, reducing transpiration. Dense coatings of hairs reflect sunlight, protecting the more delicate tissues underneath in hot, dry, open habitats. In addition, in locations where much of the available moisture comes from fog drip, hairs appear to enhance this process by increasing the surface area on which water droplets can accumulate." wikipedia

The stinging spikes of stinging nettles are also a type of modified trichome which is pretty cool

I think it would be too much effort to try and train an old shrub into a tree when hydrangeas are so insanely easy to take cuttings of, and the cuttings grow so fast. (So much so that when we prune our hydrangeas many of the fallen branches accidentally become new plants).

tho I love hydrangea bush's too and this is a lovely mature one. So I reackon you should keep this one, take a cutting, and grow the cutting into a tree somewhere else, and then you get the best of both worlds (: