Growing Wise : house plants

Tropicals

Elisabeth — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 22:22:00 GMT

I love tropical plants--the brilliant flowers, colors and luxuriant plant forms. In my dreams I have a large green house filled with bountiful citrus trees, vibrant bougainvillea, fragrant clerodendrum and gorgeous brugmansia. Some plant or other is in bloom at all times, and many bloom during the darkest months of the year. I spend the winters soaking in all that warmth and fragrance and high humidity. Every summer my trusty helpers take many of those same plants out into the garden, where they serve as dramatic focal points.

Then I wake up and remember that I live in a cold winter climate without benefit of a greenhouse. My trusty helpers are actually two lazy cats who can't lift anything heavier than a medium-size cat toy and the supply of sunny indoor space is limited. It is all extremely depressing.

I make do with a twenty year old lemon tree that has never so much as flowered, a four year old orchid cactus that flowered for the first time last summer and a few fancy-leaf begonias. Several months ago I augmented this tropical collection with a small clivia and an even smaller jasmine. Hopefully they will get enough light to thrive and even bloom someday.

In the meantime I am saving my pennies for the greenhouse.

In Praise of Kalanchoe

Elisabeth — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:52:00 GMT

You may not know its name, but kalanchoe is everywhere right now. Last week I went to the grocery store, the Home Depot and the local garden center and I saw kalanchoe plants in each place. Now that the holidays are over and the decorations are stowed away, most of us are searching desperately for something colorful to carry us through the next few weeks. Kalanchoe, often overlooked when flashier plants are available, comes to the rescue.

Kalanchoe is easy to spot. The common grocery store type is actually a hybrid or selection of Kalanchoe blossfeldiana, which is native to Madagascar. The plants are about twelve inches high and have big succulent leaves and clusters of small four-petaled flowers that are somewhat trumpet-shaped. The big selling point is the colorful blooms, which come in vivid shades of orange, magenta, white, yellow, pink and red. The blooms on the newer double-flowered forms look almost like small roses. Kalanchoe is always sold in bloom, and the flowers last for a long time.

As a member of the Crassulaceae family, kalanchoe is related to the well-known jade plant. Like the jade, it is relatively undemanding and prefers to be on the dry side. Water the plant when the top of the soil is dry. You can also determine the plant's relative thirst level by feeling the leaves. If the leaves feel plump and fleshy, the plant has had enough water. If the leaves feel somewhat less meaty or even limp, water the plant right away.

Most people buy kalanchoe in mid-winter, enjoy them while the blooms last and then throw them away. If you want to keep your plant, cut off the dead stalks, and pinch back the branches when the plant grows leggy. Like the vast majority of other houseplants, it thrives best in a sunny location.

Every plant should have its moment in the sun--so to speak--and each of us should surround ourselves with flowers as much as possible. Kalanchoe has its moment in January, boosting morale after the poinsettias and amaryllis are just a memory.

Painted Ladies

Elisabeth — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 03:18:00 GMT

Today I went to a large local garden center to pick out some moderately priced plants to use as last minute holiday gifts. I was struck by the vast and varied array of poinsettias. I was also impressed by how much poinsettias have changed.

The poinsettias of my childhood were almost always large plants with big, red petal-like bracts. Now the sky's the limit when it comes to size, form and color. Red is still king, but now nurseries offer darker and lighter red shades plus pink, white and bi-colored varieties. A few years ago, nursery owners, spurred on by decorators, first saw the merchandising opportunities inherent in the combination of white poinsettias and spray paint. Now you can buy blue, multi-colored, gold or silver-painted plants, with or without sparkles. Your holiday decor can be as retro, futuristic, psychedelic or just plain wacky as you want and you'll probably be able to find a poinsettia to match.

Poinsettias also come in a range of sizes--from little minis in four inch pots to behemoths that stand three feet tall, counting the container. I am particularly fond of the rose-form poinsettias, which have multiple small bracts that make the "flowers" resemble roses. Despite the high bract count, they seem a little less over-the-top than other varieties.

We live in a world full of all kinds of trouble and peril, and one of the best ways to deal with the stress is to fill our houses with beautiful living things. Poinsettias do a wonderful job of home beautification--even if they do it clad in electric blue.

Indoor Garden

Elisabeth — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 23:28:00 GMT

In the winter my dining room doubles as a conservatory, with the built-in bench that runs along the bowed wall on the south end serving as home to most of my houseplant collection. I am fond of them, but they have always played second fiddle in my affections to the plants that live outside. Lately I have been trying to find ways to make the dining room plant collection look less like a mishmash of unrelated specimens and more like an indoor garden.

For starters I have put everything in attractive containers, with all the plastic nursery pots camouflaged by decorative bowls and vessels. I have also added height, placing some specimens on two-foot tall plant stands. Short plants go in front of taller ones, with sun lovers grouped directly in front of the windows and shade lovers positioned a bit farther from the light.

There is still more that I can do. All the saucers should match the pots, which is not the case at the moment. Every plant should be in peak condition and I'll start paying more attention to that. I am not happy yet with the plant groupings, so I will do a little more experimenting. In the meantime I'll deck the lemon tree with a string of twinkling holiday lights. The indoor garden won't be perfect, but it will be festive.

In From the Cold

Elisabeth — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:50:00 GMT

For the past eight weeks the first floor of our old house has been torn apart as contractors rebuilt the floors. My houseplants spend the late spring, summer and early fall outside, and normally I would have brought them back in sometimes in September. However, most of them spend the winters in the large, south-facing bay window in my dining room. Not only was the dining room floor not there, but the window seat was gone for the duration of the construction project.

Fortunately we have had a fairly warm fall, and the plants have survived, grouped together on the back porch right by the house. The least hardy of the lot were brought indoors and placed in sunny windows on the second floor, but several, including large jade and lemon trees, were too big to make the trip up the stairs.

Now, the last of the contractors is finally finished, which is fortunate, because tonight the temperature is supposed to dip down into the twenties. The wind is already cold, and the plants are shivering as they await the trip into the house. I bring each one in, check for bugs and dead stalks or canes, then wipe down the pots, rinse the saucers and put them back in the dining room where they belong. I expect that all of them will suffer from the combined shocks of light deprivation and dramatic temperature change, so they will look awful for at least two weeks. With tender loving care, though, I think they'll pull through. I am grateful that Mother Nature decided to hold off on the Arctic blasts until I could rescue my green "children" from the elements.

House Plants

Elisabeth — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 23:08:00 GMT

Now that the garden is somewhat quieter, my thoughts have turned to the state of my house plants. I have quite an array--from a large lemon tree that I have had for more than two decades to a tiny little auricula-type primrose that I bought last spring. I have a Christmas cactus and a large jade tree as well as a big pot of Parma violets. What I don't have is a greenhouse, sunny conservatory or even an abundance of accessible south-facing windows. This makes it a challenge to give some plants optimal environments.

This year I have committed myself to paying more attention to the houseplants. After all, what is a collection of indoor plants, but a garden? As in any other garden, plants should be positioned in the locations best suited to their needs and tended regularly. My new indoor plant initiative will include keeping better track of temperatures in my plant areas, providing plenty of humidity (since many plants suffer because of dry winter air) and paying attention to specific water needs. None of these things are particularly hard to do and tending the indoor garden requires considerably less work than tending the one outside. A slight change in my focus should result in better health for my houseplants.

And maybe some day I'll get that greenhouse...