Garden Center Houseplants

Have garden centers given up on houseplants?

Let There Be Indoor Plants - And Better Lighting

The only thing missing is the Rhapis palm. We enjoyed this article. Barbara has the right idea.

However, we need better lighting options to support the creative ideas of professional interior designers...and the life of the plants of course.

 
 

Excerpt: There needs to be a place in our lives where we can close the door and relax. I like to think of our homes (or perhaps for some only our bedrooms) as an oasis, a sanctuary, a place to rest and renew ourselves so we can go forth again.

It’s very soothing to bring nature into your home at whatever level you can. If you can maintain a few green plants, large or small, it will do wonders for your space. Of course, fresh flowers, even if it’s a single flower in a bud vase, are uplifting. Flowering plants are a good deal financially because their flowers usually last longer than cut flowers.

Studies have shown that people feel better around plants. Something within in us craves nature and is healed and strengthened by it.

Mystery Peace Lily

Click to enlarge. Does anyone know what Spathiphyllum cultivar this is? We bought it at Lowe's for $3.50 in an unlabled 4" pot. It's a beautiful little plant with multiple spathes. It appears to be a compact variety. We'll find out.

Perhaps, one day, we'll get adequate consumer labeling of houseplants. It hardly exists here in Southern California. Wishful thinking?

Sub-irrigation On A Shoestring

Click to enlarge. Here is another Really Simple Sub-irrigation (RSSi) method for those on a shoestring budget. And they’re recycled shoestrings at that.

Don't be put off by the somewhat crude look of this method. It works just as well as some relatively expensive commercial planters. The shoestring wicks are hidden inside a decorative cachepot. You will be the only one to see them.

In this demonstration the Peace Lily grow pot fits snuggly into an inexpensive plastic cachepot and hangs from the grow pot lip. Using a larger and more decorative water tight cachepot (no drainage holes) would likely require staging the grow pot.

For staging, we use inverted plastic drinking cups cut to the height necessary to raise the grow pot up within approximately ½ inch from the top of the cachepot. The shoestrings then hang down into a ‘reservoir’ formed by the grow pot and cachepot. This is similar to the double potting method used by professional interior plantscapers.

The key to success with this method is to measure the water. This is not "self-watering" which is erroneous and highly misleading terminology that usually means keeping a reservoir full. This Peace Lily in a 6" pot uses 1 ounce of water per day. It receives about 15 ounces twice per month.

The water never rises to the top. The soil surface is always dry. This means no fungus gnats. Further, there is no moist soil that can harbor molds and trigger alergic reactions. This is a simple, cost effective greenscaping method for the home. It is good for you and your plant's environment.

Fungus Gnats

More bogus fungus gnat advice here. It's inappropriate to blame it on the retailer. It's most likely caused by drench and drain watering which often results in overly moist soil, a fertile environment for fungus gnat larvae.

With measured sub-irrigation (MSi), the soil surface is always dry and thus there is no habitat for fungus gnat (sciarid flies) propagation. You do not need cinnamon or sand!

Update On The Digital World

John Battelle's Searchblog reports on Mary Meeker's research report Update On The Digital World (a PDF file). It's a worthwhile read that includes up to date information about blogging.

Lettuce On Your Window Sill Please

Fresh, pushy marketing? You won't get it any fresher than this. Well of course it should be sub-irrigated, or grown hydroponically!

Have you heard about the feng shui benefits of 'Lucky Lettuce'?

Britain, Canada And America In Bloom

We’ve had this link to Britain in Bloom, sponsored by the Royal Horticultural Society in our “to-post” file since the beginning of the month. Our thought was that we should have a program like this in the U.S. Well, guess what, we do.

We discovered this from a Greenhouse Product News item.

It turns out that the Canadians were smart enough to copy a great idea. They named their program Communities In Bloom. They then helped the U.S. launch America In Bloom in 2001.

We found BIB from a UK interior plantscaper website link. We’ve lost the link but we’ll find it. What a wonderful outreach and PR opportunity this program is for interior plantscapers and garden centers who practice outdoor container gardening.

We Volunteer To Help

It’s not enough to find a problem if you don’t also have a solution. We’ve been thinking about that after our GreenBuilt tour this past Saturday. We saw a problem. Now, what can we do to help solve it?

We make an offer to San Diego EarthWorks to provide an onsite pro bono consultation to any of the site owners we visited. We know how to improve every one of the indoor plant installations we observed. The objective is to make them consistent with sustainable green building standards.

We also know that we will likely learn more then anyone and it will make us better equipped to help others down the line.

SmartScaping

This article about smart buildings is pertinent to interior plantscaping. You could substitute interior plantscaping industry for construction industry.

Excerpt: Many new building materials are first developed in Europe, where energy is more expensive. "The construction industry is behind the times in some ways, compared to many other industries," said Patrick Mays, chief information officer of architecture firm NBBJ.

We first learned about sub-irrigation technology from Europe. When gas in Europe is more than twice as expensive as in the U.S. there is a motivation to create and adopt technology to conserve it.

This is why the basics of sub-irrigation and hydroculture were developed in Europe. However, the US arguably has the most sophisticated system, the vacuum-sensor controlled CWI from Planter Technology. It is widely used, but no one knows what percent of commercial interior plants are installed in CWIs or any of the other systems such as Jardinier and MONA.

Unfortunately, there is still a large number of technophobic interiorscapers slavishly addicted to weekly drench and drain top watering. They are reluctant to give up this wasteful practice but we believe energy costs and the green building movement will force them to modernize or exit the business. The market is always the ultimate boss.

GreenBuilt Tour

We went on the San Diego GreenBuilt Tour 2004 yesterday. The tour was well organized and extremely informative. We thank and congratulate San Diego Earthworks, producers of the tour. We learned much and thoroughly enjoyed the time spent and the friendly people we met.

Every one of the sites we visited had an impressive array of sustainable building features and products. Every one also had interior plants. Every one also had moist soil created from drench and drain top watering. This was true of both professionally maintained and owner maintained plants.

While we have no way of scientifically measuring the consequences of this moist soil, it was most certainly contrary to the intent and spirit of green building. How can we have waterless urinals, boards made from sunflower seed hulls, xeriscaping and yet have interior plants capable of producing molds, insect pests, and wasted water?

It’s easy, because there is little or no consumer education about the potential hazards of drench and drain watering. It is little understood that the soil surface remains dry at all times with measured sub-irrigation. Neither molds nor fungus gnats can survive in this dry soil environment.

This excerpt is from "Indoor Air Pollution: An Introduction for Health Professionals" Co-sponsored by: The American Lung Association (ALA), The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), and The American Medical Association (AMA) U.S. Government Printing Office Publication No. 1994-523-217/81322, 1994 [EPA 402-R-94-007, 1994]

Excerpt: While decorative foliage plants may be aesthetically pleasing, it should be noted that overdamp planter soil conditions may actually promote growth of unhealthy microorganisms.

There is an ongoing effort by Plants At Work to get interior plants included in the LEED rating process. This is a worthy and justifiable objective but misses the mark if it does not include the process of maintaining them. The green benefits of plants disappear if the plant care process is brown. That is what we observed yesterday.

Questions, We Get Questions

Extension agents get tons of questions. The question we have is where do they get the answers? Where is the research done?

We would recommend the Interiorscape message board for working professionals and members of academia. Some very knowledgeable interior plantscape professionals post and answer questions on this board. It is not meant for the general public but is open for read-only use.

We look forward to the day when there is a public houseplant forum moderated by credentialed interior plantscape professionals. The current public forums are significant sources of mis-information.

Excerpt: I even received an inquiry about an insect that "looks like a wasp on steroids." Of course, I do my best in answering every question that comes across my desk with factual, research-based information. Here are some of the timely and common questions I've received:

Excerpt:

Q There are hundreds of little "black gnats" flying around my kitchen. What are they and how do I get rid of them?

A The black gnats that you see may be fungus flies. They are slender, mosquitolike and delicate, with long legs and one pair of clear wings. They are usually seen flying at windows and around house plants. Homeowners may notice these small flies when watering potted plants. The larvae of fungus gnats live in moist soil and feed on decaying organic matter. These conditions are abundant outside in the fall season and nearly year-round in potted plants.

Control of fungus gnats in the house is relatively simple. Adult fungus gnats are attracted to moist, organically rich soil. Examine all houseplants for over-watered soil. Allowing the soil to dry out for several days (or longer) is probably the best control of these pests. The larvae live in the top layer of soil. If the top layer of soil becomes dry, the larvae will die and the adults will not have a place to lay their eggs.

Yes, “nearly year-round in potted plants” only if you top water drench and drain. This method is highly conducive to fungus gnat problems. They are a common occurrence, particularly during the low-light winter season when caretakers tend to over water.

If you use measured sub-irrigation (MSi) you will never have fungus gnats unless you ignore the instruction that you not allow water to rise to the soil surface. With MSi, the soil surface is always dry. Sciarid (fungus gnat) larvae must have moist soil to propagate.

Don't drench and drain, use measured sub-irrigation. It's easier and much better for your plants.

Between A Rock And A Hardplace

Selling to the big box chains, Wal-Mart in particular, is a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Whether its' toys or houseplants, the marketing challenge is the same. Once the product is commoditized, it's 'game over'.

The only alternative is creating consumer demand for distinctive and unique products. At this point in time, the houseplant industry has not been able to do this. Houseplants are all too often treated as if they were an agricultural crop.

It will come as no surprise that we suggest incorporating tools and techniques to make the product more user friendly, easier to care for. There are just so many Lucky Bamboos in the pipeline. We believe striving to create blockbuster plants without improving ease of customer care is a no-win strategy.

What's your opinion?

Doubting Green Thumbs

I long ago experienced the ornamental horticulture world having somewhat of a techno-averse attitude. The roots of this likely started back in the ‘70s when what were referred to as ‘flower children’ flocked to ornamental horticulture programs across the U.S.

I was there in the middle of it at Cal Poly, except that I was forty, not twenty, and had already experienced a lengthy career in the computer industry with IBM and NCR. I was therefore comfortable with technology, marketing and big business.

Technology is often an affront to a ‘green thumb’ self image when it should not be. For example, if I had not been very hands on in implementing sub-irrigation in my interior plantscaping company, it would likely have failed because of resistance to technology. It succeeded dramatically, however, and those with open minds learned something new while those with closed minds moved on.

I experience the same dynamic existing in the houseplant market today and believe it contributes to stagnation of the business. To experience this, all you need do is spend time on some of the houseplant forums. There’s not much room for progressive thinking. I experienced this first hand by posting for a time on the largest Internet houseplant forum.

It is, in my opinion, one of the worst venues for a newbie to learn about houseplant care. One needs to be an expert just to filter out fact from fiction and it’s not easy.

The business desperately needs you who are horticultural technologists to come forward and share your knowledge. I know you're out there. What's more, I know many of you by name.

Free Wall Street Journal Next Month

As a subscriber to the online Wall Street Journal we found this news most interesting. The emerging power of blogs is a fascinating story.

A Foolish Fetish

A soluble salts fetish is the only justification we've found for drench and drain watering. We’re not sure how this mythology became so embedded but it has no scientific justification that we know of. It is the worst way to water indoor plants. Yet, Master Gardener, Extension and other gardening websites advocate it. It has become a mantra blindly copied from one source to another.

We know from personal experience that sub-irrigation is the method of choice for established interior plantscape companies. They obviously would not use an inferior method since they guarantee their plant maintenance. Unfortunately, they are reluctant to share their experience for fear of revealing ‘trade secrets’. Meanwhile the retail houseplant market is admonished to ‘poke and pour’ and as a result indoor plants decline in public favor.

The sole purpose of our plant lab over the past six years has been to substantiate the superiority of sub-irrigation. It has done that.

There is also ample evidence on the web to support sub-irrigation as the best indoor plant watering method. Here is one favorable report on sub-irrigation by Douglas A. Cox, Associate Professor of Floriculture, Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Flower Growers Association and the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture funded the project.

Eight-inch plastic saucers were used as the simple subirrigation “system”. Water was applied to the saucers. The sub-irrigated plants then absorbed water by capillary action for approximately 45 minutes before the excess was poured off. This is similar to the method we call Really Simple Sub-irrigation (RSSi).

This is essentially the same method of sub-irrigation recommended by the 200-year-old Royal Horticultural Society in the UK. The Flowers and Plants Association, the UK’s promotional organization for all commercially grown cut flowers and indoor plants, also recommends it.

A key issue of the Cox study was soluble salts accumulation. The study substantiated what reputable sub-irrigation planter suppliers such as Planter Technology have been saying for the past two decades. Using sub-irrigation, soluble salts are elevated up out of harms way into the area where there are little or no roots.

The study supported this claim. Soluble salts levels in the active root zone (bottom two- thirds), were well within safe limits for the sub-irrigated plants. There was no difference in soluble salts measurements between sub-irrigated or top-watered plants. The sole reason for drench and drain watering of houseplants is unsubstantiated.

Grocery Online

Online grocery shopping may yet succeed in car crazy California. However, you can't buy houseplants online.

Excerpt: Except for house plants, cut flowers, greeting cards and cosmetics -- purchases that depend heavily on shoppers' personal preferences -- any of the more than 40,000 products available in a full-size Vons market can be purchased online.

The Price Of Success

It's good to read that Minnesota Public Radio is right on the job with its investigative reporting. Wouldn't other retailers (and the houseplant business) love to have this kind of negative publicity.

Let's not feel too sorry for IKEA there's also some positive news.

Quote Abe L. "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time."

Getting The WordBiz Out

Interest in starting a business blog is high, but so is concern about the time required to write one. We can vouch for that.

Excerpt: 71% of marketers reported time as a key concern in managing a business blog for their company or organization according to results from a recent WordBiz survey. 45% were unsure what to write about, 18% questioned if the content needs to be edited or pre approved and 15% wondered who would be responsible for the content. Yet, when asked if they have considered starting a business blog, more than 80% responded yes.

Characteristics Of Water

It's great that they're learning about the boiling point of water and hydroponics. We suspect they're learning about capillary action too.

That's a good thing. They will be better equipped to know how to water their houseplants.

Initial Tropical Plants PR

We reluctantly agree that any publicity is better than no publicity but we would be happier to see more constructive PR from the world's largest interior plantscaping company. We diligently look for it, but find nothing.

Starting Up

Visit Startups if you're thinking about starting your own business. They have a guide for starting a florist business that would be just as applicable to starting an interior plantscaping business. Also, read the guide for starting a landscape gardening business.

Excerpt: A certain amount of business nous is a vital ingredient of a flourishing business. “You also need some idea of how to run a small business. Many people start a floristry business having great floristry skills but little business sense – the successful ones have the business skills - or hire someone with those attributes - as well,” says Caldecourt.

This is characteristic of the U.S. interior plantscaping business. The business is permeated with 'can and a van' plant tenders with very little business savvy. Some are happy with an income that's only above pumping coffee at Starbucks.

San Diego Greenbuilt Tour

On Oct. 23, San Diego EarthWorks will host the fourth annual GreenBuilt Tour, a self-guided tour of homes and businesses.

Here is a tour map with photo links below. We see indoor plants in these photos and wonder how many of them are 'greenscaped' and how many are watered by environmentally unsound drench and drain methods.

We'll take the tour and you can be sure we'll be proselytizing about greenscaping.

PAW To Present At IFMA Expo

Interior Business reports that Plants At Work (PAW) will present at the International Facility Management Association's (IFMA) World Workplace Expo on October 19.

Food, Furniture...and Plants

Are we unabashed IKEA fans? Yup! We think they're world-class merchandisers and we're going to have lunch there this week. We might even go back for more.

Yard Plants

Here is yet another article about ‘bringing in the houseplants’. Others are here, here, here and here. In our view this advice is not about ‘houseplants’ it’s about ‘yard plants’ and ‘over-wintering’ them inside the house.

This process provides a rapid transit system into your home for all kinds of plant pests. Advice to spray them with a hose is a joke.

No one who really understands the value of high quality acclimatized indoor plants moves them outside in the summer. Advice to do so is rubbish in our opinion and the place for that is the compost pile.

eFIG In The SiteLight

In the course of our research, we find many interesting websites. We've decided to share them with you via an IPL SiteLight a new continuing feature.

The European Federation of Interior Landscaping Groups Limited (eFIG) is first in the SiteLight.

We are impressed with eFigs outreach efforts. It is far more than a self-serving trade association website.

Whether you are an interior designer, architect, facilities manager, business manager, educator, grower or homeowner you can learn much about indoor plants by exploring this website and its many links. Plants-In-Buildings and Plants For People are two outstanding websites linked from the home page.

eFIG is offering an Interior Landscaping Exhibition on October 14 and 15, 2004 at Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, UK. The Royal Agricultural Society of England owns Stoneleigh Park.

Kenneth Freeman, co-author of Plants-In-Buildings, is one of the speakers. We wish we could be there. We have no doubt we would learn much from Kenneth and the other presenters.

Unreal Plants

Here's an interesting article about 'silk' replica plants. They’re not what we have in mind when we think of greenscaping, but we agree with the author’s premise about busy people (see excerpt).

The replica plant business has been growing while the live houseplant business has been declining. Meanwhile, nothing is being done to make houseplants easier to care for—to make them more user-friendly.

Excerpt: In today’s busy world, it’s hard enough keeping ourselves, our spouses and our children healthy and strong — which can make houseplants something of a liability for a hopping homeowner.

Indoor Plant Lighting

The author makes a case for buying an indoor plant lighting setup. This is a good path to take for those interested in indoor gardening involving small plants and seed starting.

Our point of view, however, is indoor plants would be a more typical part of interior furnishings if there were light fixtures designed to support them. Here is what we accomplished with one commonly available fluorescent fixture.

The stereotypical solution for ‘indoor gardening’ has been overhead light, typically installed on a rather expensive ‘light stand’. The light from a window is not overhead it is side light. We have yet to find a vertical or columnar plant light. We have supported the maintenance of a floor-standing Ficus benjamina tree with just one vertical fluorescent fixture.

Excerpt: I can never figure out why a population will spend hundreds of dollars on average for equipment and supplies to support annuals that last three months but be so stingy when it comes to buying a simple light setup to grow indoor plants for a season three times as long. The loyal reader knows I think all Alaska homes should have at least a simple shop fixture with two fluorescent bulbs and a timer for growing plants indoors during winter.

New Funding For Six Apart

Six Apart, creators of Movable Type, has received $10 million of new funding. This blog is published using Movable Type. The investment is yet another endorsement of weblog communications.

Manhattan Home Depot Update

UpDate: The October Stores magazine has a feature article about the new Manhattan Home Depot store.

Excerpt: Other categories that have been tweaked to suit Manhattanites include the cleaning aisles, appliances scaled for urban living, including washers and dryers, mini refrigerators and compact wine coolers, and plants suited for indoor or terrace/fire escape growing. There are more than 1,200 different styles of decorative finishing products, such as door and cabinet hardware, more than 1,000 fixtures and fans, and more than 400 varieties of light bulbs.

Community Partner Champion of the Month

Community Partners selected Commuter Link, sponsor of OzoneNY, as Community Partner Champion of the Month for September.

Congratulations to everyone who was involved in the creation of OzoneNY, a campaign that merits implementation in every city in the country.

Please comment below or post an e-mail if you have an interest in learning more about this outstanding program.

Excerpt: This year Ozone NY launched a new and innovative campaign—Get a Plant, Green Means Cleaner Air. The campaign, which includes traffic, sports, and weather report sponsorships on several radio stations and advertisements on several local cable TV networks (such as HGTV and Fox News), targets individuals rather than the business audience that Ozone NY traditionally targets. The ads center on the simple and thought-provoking concept that plants can improve air quality by reducing ground-level ozone (see www.OzoneNY.org for details on how plants can reduce VOC levels and air temperature).

As part of the program, Ozone NY formed partnerships with 250 plant stores in the region that will allow anyone who mentions ground-level ozone to get a 5-10% discount on the purchase of a plant. The plant stores were given two posters to help them promote the campaign. In turn, the plant stores receive free advertising and a listing on the Ozone NY web site. A plant tag congratulates purchasers for taking the first step to improving air quality, lists three more steps from the It All Adds Up “Ten Simple Steps to Improving Air Quality” flyer, and directs customers to the Ozone NY web site for more information.

Under A Sheltering Palm

If interior plants are so good for the health and welfare of white-color workers, why aren’t they just as beneficial for blue-collar workers?

Behr Systems USA management asked the same question and had Planterra install a palm in one of its factories. They heard a resounding ‘yes’ to the question from employees in the area. They also heard the palm say ‘okay’, even though it doesn't really think it's living in ‘paradise’.

We applaud this out-of-the-box thinking. We also have the feeling that there are many more 'factoryscaping' installations like this around the world. Please let us know so we can publish them for the benefit of all readers. Thanks!

He's Back

On October 1 we posted about Joe Cialone and linked to an article in the Sun-Sentinel online.

Excerpt: After 34 years in the ornamental plant business, Joe Cialone will soon close because of the near complete devastation caused by Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne on his western Lake Worth property.

"We're done," said Cialone. "It's going to be hard to tell my employees -- some have been with us for 20 years -- that they don't have a job anymore."

Four wooden sheds that shaded his indoor plants, part of Tropical Ornamental's 17-acre operation, collapsed and crushed the plants inside. What Frances didn't destroy, Jeanne finished off, he said.

Evidently he was misquoted according to this post on the Interiorscape forum.

We have no idea how this happened, but we're glad to find out that he's still in business and wish him the best of luck. The folks in Florida were dealt devastating blows and we wish them a speedy recovery.

A Big Box In Brooklyn

A big deal in our hometown is the possiblility of a new IKEA in Red Hook. It's not very far from Sunset Park, our birthplace, where Finntown was long ago.

This is a rendering of the project. Red Hook will never be the same. With free weekend ferry service from Manhattan this project will likely be a significant tourist attraction. You should be able to see the Statue of Liberty and lower Manhattan from here.

Here's a wonderful 34 picture photo tour from NY Newsday. We were on a Municipal Art Society Brooklyn Waterfront bus/walking tour through this area in 1999. It was a great experience we'll not forget. Whenever you're in New York be sure to go on one of the MAS tours. They're the best.

Positive PR

Nice to see this plug for houseplants from Lowe's.

Excerpt: Clearing the Air

According to the Office of Environmental Affairs, indoor air is often two to five times more contaminated than outdoor air. Combat this issue with these easy improvements:

-- Grow indoor plants. Spider Plants, Ferns, Dracaenas, English Ivy and Daisies will absorb indoor pollutants, such as carbon monoxide.

The press release was picked up by Occupational Hazards on October 7.

Blog On!

Here's an interesting article on blog marketing. Read on!

Up On The Roof

Hydroponics on the roof? Why not? Way to go guys!

They're growing veggies but it could be houseplants too. They have a shaded roof structure.

Excerpt: It takes about 30 days for a plant to mature with hydroponics, compared with twice that time in soil. Planting at the PAL rooftop farm is done on a rotating basis so that about a quarter of the total crop is ready for harvest each week.

The students take their harvest to nearby Hunts Point produce market, the largest food distribution facility in the country, where it is purchased by the Gristedes grocery chain. Look for the PAL logo on lettuce and tomatoes in their stores' produce department.

In addition to practical training in making, using and maintaining the "Nutrient Drip Flow" system that feeds the fast-growing plants, learning about hydroponic farming also involves chemistry, biology and math.

Hydroponics A Little Further North

This is about a new Middle-High school (grades 7-12) in Morrisville, upstate New York. Did you go to a school like this, or know anyone who did?

Excerpts: "All of our math and science classes have smart boards," Bauersfeld said. Smart boards are white boards attached to the wall where teachers can write notes and save them on computers. The notes can be transferred to web pages later, so that absent students can access the notes from the Internet.

The science rooms were moved to the previous site of the language rooms and doubled in size to add lab stations, and a greenhouse was added to the Biology room on the south side of the building.

"This is going to be really nice for Biology classes," Bauersfeld said. "These are what we consider to be state-of-the-art science rooms."

The art room offers a new, improved darkroom for photography students. The technology shop has all new machinery, including a dust vacuum to help students keep the room clean. Separate rooms were also added for painting and welding, as well as a hydroponics area to grow plants without soil.

Houseplant Sources

Dave's Garden has a helpful feature called The Garden Watchdog Guide to Gardening by Mail. Scroll down and you can browse by category, Plants: Houseplants for example.

There are almost 140 suppliers listed. Many of them have customer ratings and comments along with website links. This can keep you busy for a good while and most likely enlarge your credit card balance.

No More Hurricanes, Just A Fresh Breeze Please

Using every metric we know of, including USDA statistics, indoor foliage plants are currently a no-growth business. USDA figures show that the value of annual foliage plant production has declined approximately 11% (inflation adjusted) since 1980. Factoring in the US population growth of 28% since then the decline is minus 27%.

The numbers tell the story. If the business was a publicly traded corporation, the Wall Street recommendation would likely be to sell the stock.

Is there something wrong with the product? In our opinion, the answer is a resounding no. Is there something wrong with the marketing and use of the product? Our answer is a resounding yes!

As the pace of our society has continued to accelerate, time is at a premium. Indoor plants are far less user friendly in this environment with fewer stay-at-home spouses. Busy people simply do not have time to grow a green thumb. Witness the boom in the 'silk plant' business over the past decade.

We at IPL define indoor plants as a product rather than a process called ‘indoor gardening’, or ‘growing’. We look upon indoor plants as interior furnishings. We call their application residential interiorscaping. The plants do not need to grow. They just need to stay alive and look good.

That’s no easy task when product care is complex and the product is poorly supported. We find many plants unlabeled —similar to produce marketing. We call it ‘broccoli marketing’. ‘Eat this, it’s good for you’ doesn’t cut it in our opinion.

Prevailing product care advice is based on arcane ‘drench and drain’, or if you will ‘poke and pour’, horticultural practices. These were modern only in the days of ancient Pompeii. It’s time for proven neo-tech product care practices to prevail over no-tech indoor gardening methods.

Neo-tech indoor plant care isn’t rocket science. It’s akin to cooking using measured ingredients. Scales, measuring spoons and cups are common, everyday cooking tools.

Sub-irrigation planters and devices, foot-candle (or lux) light meters and soil probes are mainstream tools in the professional plant care business. They hardly exist in the consumer market. They should be everyday plant care tools just as our kitchen tools.

What is the outlook for change?

As long as Master Gardener Extension programs, preaching drench and drain watering, dominate consumer education the business will not grow.

As long as unlabeled and lesser quality houseplants, such as Majesty Palms, glut the retail market, the business will not grow.

As long as professional interior plant maintainers remain silent about proven modern practices, such as sub-irrigation, the business will not grow.

There’s nothing wrong with the product. There is with the processes and they are fixable.

Is there a will to do it is the question? In the age of the Internet, it doesn’t take megabucks.

Grass roots, or ‘green roots’, movements can work on the Internet. Become a part of the solution. What do you think? Post your comments. Better yet, if you have knowledge to contribute, start a blog.

Life In Singapore

We linked this article about life in Singapore mostly because of the dark humor. There's a message here also about negative imagery. In this case it's the cliché image of a houseplant sitting in a saucer of water, the result of careless 'drench and drain' watering.

Measured sub-irrigation (MSi), of course, avoids this and other negative aspects of arcane top watering practices. Mosquitos and fungus gnats must find other people to harm or annoy.

Excerpt: But the most dangerous creature you are likely to run into in Singapore is not the python, the spitting cobra or the crocodile, but rather the mosquito.

I suffered an abject demonstration of this recently when I contracted dengue fever, a very painful virus transmitted by the aedes mosquito (aedes aegypti).

Unlike the malaria-carrying anopheles mosquito, a country bug that favors swamps and eschews the city, the aedes is a cosmopolitan insect whose females prefer the blood of well-nourished apartment dwellers like myself.

So if inspectors arrive at your door in Singapore to inspect your house plants, they are not from the local garden committee. They have come from the government to search for standing water where aedes likes to raise its young.

RSS Feeds Have Been Added

We forgot to mention about adding Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed links. Scroll down on the left, right click and copy our link into your RSS reader.

If you’re not familiar with RSS, start with this tutorial. There are links to more information.

Excerpt: RSS is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content. Using this standard, Web publishers provide updates, such as the latest news headlines or weblog postings. Meanwhile, consumers use RSS reader applications (or one of a growing number of online services) to collect and monitor their favorite feeds in one place (RSS content from a publisher, viewed in one of these readers, is often called a "feed").

Consumer Bottom Line: RSS makes reviewing a large number of sites in a very short time possible.

Publisher Bottom Line: RSS permits instant distribution of content updates to consumers.

Interiorscaping Outlook

Interior Business magazine has published its annual State of the Industry Report. We'll have more to say about it in the coming week.

We Just Moved Into The Neighborhood

If you're tired of political campaign commercials, check this out.

We're Done

There's more sad news from Florida. As a result of hurricane damage, Joe Cialone and his son are closing Tropical Ornamentals after 34 years. Cialone is past president of the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA) and a prominent figure in the interior plantscaping business.