Time Out

We'll be back next Monday, February 7.

Far Out Organic Produce

What a way to do your vegetable gardening. Okay, what about the Spider Plants?

 
 
 

TPIE News?

We are curious about TPIE news.

Inquiring Minds Want To Know

In their never-ending quest for knowledge, a team of scientists has evidently discovered how the Venus Flytrap leaf trap works. The Botanical Society of America appears to have been on to much of this for some time.

No, we don't have one in our plant lab. But, we're thinking about it.

 
 

Links Galore

Spend some time exploring the Vocational Information Center if you are considering a career in horticulture or even if you're not. Kathryn Hake has created a rather amazing assemblage of links.

We noted that in the Horticulture and Floriculture Career Descriptions the only entry is Irrigation Specialist. There is no Interior Plantscaper (Landscaper) or Indoor Horticulturist. There is nothing related to inside plants.

We don't fault Kathryn. She has done scholarly work of the highest quality. We can understand how she overlooked the field of inside plants. We search every day and find little or no publicity about the field.

So Cal Plant Tour Days Reminder

Southern California Plant Tour Days are next month - February 23-25. We applaud the growers for continuing this fine marketing program.

We wouldn't miss it. Online registration.
 

Drench And Drain With Pinpoint Accuracy

No, we're not endorsing this but it's a cool, space-age looking watering can even if you're a retro drench and drainer.

We found the promotional video an amusing demonstration of the homely image of often seen houseplants in tacky looking drainage saucers on a window sill. They're a long way from our personal image of houseplant quality and we hope yours too. The can capacity is 1.3 litres or about 1/3 of a gallon.

Top Plant Care Myths

One of the top plant care myths is that you cannot water your houseplants on a schedule. This master gardener writer is adamant about it. Unfortunately, she doesn't know what she doesn't know.

Even more unfortunate is what she did not learn in her couple of hours of master gardener "houseplant" training...because it was not taught.

Master: 1. A worker qualified to teach apprentices and carry on the craft independently. 2. An expert

We believe the title “master” applied to these volunteers giving houseplant advice is a misrepresentation. It is, by the way, supported by taxpayer dollars.

How can someone hold the title of "master" with only 2 hours of classroom training. That is the average of the average 40-hour master gardener classroom training program.

Green Building - Points For Plants

Everyone with an interest in the interior plantscaping business or the green building movement should read this.

Green Pretzels

Okay, so maybe you're not interested in propagating plants. How about pretzels recycled into terrariums. Those empty UTZ pretzel containers would make mighty fine terrariums.

Kids would love the pretzels and the terrarium. We're going to make one. Watch this blog and we'll share the results.

Incidentally, we read gardening columns daily. It is so much fun...not! We think
Denise Cowie, Home & Garden columnist; the Philadelphia Inquirer is head and shoulders above the rest. This woman knows some good stuff and knows how to write about it. So there...a good word about a garden writer. Jot it down!

Really Inside Plants

There's a new meaning for the words inside plants.

Certification Seminar In Canada

The Landscape Ontario Horticultural Trades Association is sponsoring a three-day workshop to prepare candidates in becoming a Certified Horticultural Technician (CHT) (Interior).

The Real Scoop On Houseplant Care

Now here's some houseplant care advice worth reading. It's as good or better than this highly forgettable advice.

We encourage you to explore the rest of the OOW a.k.a. Surburban Underground site for additional sage advice. Be sure to meet the staff.

Martha Quits Online Selling

Martha and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have had more then their share of problems as we know. Today’s news is about the shut down of Marthastewart.com.

The website is the repository of a large number of houseplant articles that will disappear. The pictures are top quality, the plant care advice not quite. Martha Stewart is probably an excellent outdoor gardener but like many outdoor gardeners, her houseplant advice was off the mark.

Any publicity, however, is better than no publicity and Martha certainly has a large following. We suspect that on balance her website had a positive influence on houseplant sales. We have video tapes of a number of Martha Stewart Gardening shows featuring houseplants. These are also historical archives since the series was cancelled.

Will she have houseplants on her new TV show? Somehow, we have our doubts.

A Missed Opportunity

Here is yet another missed public relations opportunity in the interior plantscaping business.

Comment Spam

If you've been with us for a while, you know we were bombed with comment spam. It was an extremely frustrating experience. Here's yet another potential countermeasure attracting mixed reviews.

Thanks to Dave Aiello, Weblog Improvement, we now have a means to fight back. He installed the MT-Blacklist plug-in for us. We still get occasional comment spams but it's now much simpler to remove them. We're grateful for that.

Food Shopping At Costco

We went grocery shopping at Costco yesterday. We're not always sure which leaves will get into our basket...spinach, romaine, Aspidistra. Huh? Did we need another plant? For sure not!

That's a 10" pot size Aspidistra. How much you ask. How about $4. Although not regular items, this wasn't the first time. We have also found Kentia, Rhapis, Dracaena and Aglaonema leaves attached to some very nice plants for about $12.

Apparently, Costco finds growers looking to unload some inventory for whatever reason. Costco buys them, adds a small markup and away they go.

There's good news and bad news here. Yes, these plants are bargains, but we observe that most shoppers do not know it. They don't know a Majesty palm from a Kentia palm. Of course, these plants have no plant care or information tags. Caveat emptor, but if you know your plants keep your eyes open at Costco.

Profits Drop At 1-800-Flowers

1-800-Flowers.com today reported a 36 percent drop in profits.

Silly Salts Mythology

Click to enlarge. The telltale evidence of dried soluble salts is easy to find. The question is what does it mean?

What we show here is the empty grow pot that the Lucky Bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) is living in. This is a relatively salt sensitive plant subject to leaf tipping. Notice that there is little or no leaf tipping.

Also notice that the salts residue is located at the top of the grow pot. That is because the plant is watered by measured sub-irrigation. The water rises and deposits the salts at the top where there are few if any roots.

Further, the wide swings in soil moisture common to drench and drain watering exacerbate soluble salts conditions. Measured sub-irrigation provides an evenly moist condition. The salts stay in suspension rather than precipitating out into dry form. It is dry salts that can cause damage to hair roots rather than the salts in suspension.

Watering Wackery

There are forty replies here with not one mention of the best way to water houseplants.

If there was as much misinformation about how to drive a car or use a computer as there is about houseplant care we surely would have a governmental agency protecting us from it night and day.

Tropical Sandusky

A while back, we discovered America in Bloom and thought it had good PR potential for interior plantscapers to be involved.

This isn't about an interior plantscaper. It's about Sandusky, Ohio being a part time tropical plant maintainer, outdoor landscaper and an America in Bloom award winner.

They deserve extra degree of difficulty points in the competition for doing what they do in their climate. Neat! Way to go Sandusky.

AV Problem Diagnosis

Diagnosing indoor plant problems from photos is difficult. We've seen many websites that have attemped it with mixed results.

Steve Reed's African Violet page is one of the best we've seen. The photography is excellent and his comments seem accurate. We've seen a number of the conditions he depicts and found this information useful. Good work!

African Violet Watering

Continuing on the subject of African Violets, we went looking for some photos of them in a natural setting and didn’t find what we were looking for. We did however find the websites for the African Violet Society of America (AVSA) and the African Violet Society of Canada (AVSC).

We were interested in their African Violet watering instructions.

The Canadian site recommends capillary watering from the bottom for a reason we didn't expect. We thought it would be to avoid water spots on the leaves. Minimizing soil compaction, however, was their well reasoned justification. We agree and have said so.

Excerpt:There are many systems of automatic watering such as capillary matting or wicks for the busy grower. We will advise here only on basic watering-can watering for the small grower.

Plants should always be evenly moist. Water when the surface of the soil is just beginning to feel dry. Bottom watering is recommended. Fill the saucer of the plant and return half an hour later to dump out any water that has not been absorbed.

Top watering by pouring water on the soil is not recommended. It causes the soil to become compacted, cramping the roots and cutting off their access to oxygen which they need. This has a detrimental effect on growth and the plant's root system.

You might guess by now what the AVSA site had to say. The American soluble salts fetish speaks again. When will we banish this mythology and join the modern world of houseplant horticulture?

Excerpts: In general, African violets need just enough water to keep the soil moist, but never soggy. Too much water will leave your African violets susceptible to root rot and crown rot. Overwatering can also cause de-nitrification, a condition, which prevents plants from getting the nitrogen they need.

To ensure correct watering, try wicking the plants. The use of 2-ply yarn, 4-ply Acrylic Baby Yarn or Pantyhose works successfully … whatever wick is used, it must be acrylic, nylon or synthetic to prevent rotting.

In addition, it is important to drench the soil. This will wash away any excess fertilizer salts that have accumulated in the soil, while restoring the proper balance of the elements that African violets need. To leach the soil, simply drench it with water until it has become saturated, and than allow the excess water to drain completely. A piece of egg crating sitting on top of a bucket or small trash container is a perfect place for leaching your violets. The water passes through the plant and egg crating and is captured in the bucket. You can leach several plants this way before it’s time to dump the bucket.

African Violet Bowl

Click to enlarge. We did an image search, looked at almost a thousand photos and found nothing like this African Violet bowl. The vast majority of them show the cliché image of a little four-inch pot size plant. They're cute perhaps, but not what we have in mind for plants to be used as interior design elements.

Why is this the somewhat standard image of African Violets? We believe it's because AV culture is a unique houseplant hobby with a rather well ordered set of rules. Many hobbyists grow them for show and the show organizations have established rules for how African Violets should look. This has little or nothing to do with their natural growth habits.

A couple of rules, for example, are that the pot should be about one-third the size of the plant and the plant be a single crown (one stem).

Notice that our AV planter diameter is only a little smaller than the plants. We don’t care if the stems branch and form multiple crowns. Our objective is to maintain a plant size and form in design relationship to the 12” bowl. We prune them just like any other plant to maintain the shape.

Another unique aspect of African Violet culture is sub-irrigation. African Violet clubs and societies are the only houseplant hobby groups that encourage bottom watering. The underlying reason isn’t horticultural. It isn’t that they discovered that these plants alone among all houseplants prefer sub-irrigation.

It is driven by the practice of growing them for show. The leaves have a fuzzy, felt-like surface that tends to hold water. If the caretaker is not very careful in pouring water, it is easy for some to collect on the leaves and cause spotting. The solution long ago was to water by capillary action from the bottom to avoid spotting the leaves.

So, in summary, African Violets are not naturally small plants that prefer bottom watering while all other houseplants prefer drench and drain. Think about it. If soluble salts are a problem for all houseplants (mythology) why don’t they do harm to all the sub-irrigated African Violets?

The Answer

Perhaps you've been reading this blog in search of the answer. You would like to discover the hidden secrets of indoor plant care. Well, look no further. They're here.

Are we joking? Yes, although there are some similarities to another popular indoor plant website.

Fertilzer

Click to enlarge. I use a constant feed method in the Greenscaper Consumer Lab using Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro 9-3-6 and Bloom 3-12-6. All of the plants receive more than adequate light and are watered properly using sub-irrigation. The plastic food dispensers and measuring spoons make precise measurement easy to do.

Do I recommend that you fertilize your houseplants? My advice is when in doubt, do not.

The most important plant “food” you can give your indoor plants is adequate light. Water, of course, is essential for survival. Contrary to the advice of fertilizer companies and many outdoor gardeners, fertilizer is a far distant third in order of priority.

I've experienced over the past thirty plus years that the majority of houseplants that die or are in poor health have suffered from insufficient light, too much water and probably too much fertilizer.

In my interior plantscaping business, we did not fertilize at all. It is difficult to manage with a large number of field personnel. Our plants did not suffer from lack of fertilizer. We had an excellent reputation for providing high quality interior plant care service.

GreenScaper Is Here!

GreenScaper is our new companion blog. Here is what it is about. Please come and visit.

Homely Planter Of The Year Award

Yes, this is a sub-irrigation planter from the sometimes wacky world of African violets. It looks to us like it came from a medical supply company.

Houseplant News From Bahrain

We read this houseplants article from Bahrain today and got a surprise. The author wrote about over watering and did not recommend drench and drain. She recommends capillary watering just as The Royal Horticultural Society in the UK and many others except for U.S. garden writers.

Excerpt: To ensure the plant gets the water it needs, Mrs. Shaheen advises that it 'drinks up' water from a pot saucer rather than it being soaked in water.

"Fill the pot saucer up to the waterline, let the pot plant sit on the saucer and let it drink. When the surface of the soil glistens, the compost is soaked," she advises.

"You get air pockets in compost, so this helps to ensure all pockets are saturated."

We applaud the article but offer these suggestions:

* Measure the water rather than let an unmeasured amount rise to the surface. This further minimizes the possibility of over watering and eliminates an environment for Sciarid fly (fungus gnat) propagation. Their larvae require moist soil.

Measured capillary watering also saves time. It's a one-step procedure. There's no need to return and empty the saucer.

* Use a watertight decorative cachepot rather than a saucer. This looks better and minimizes the possibility of water damage to furniture and floors. We call this Really Simple Sub-irrigation (RSSi). Pour plaster of Paris into the cachepot, if necessary, to mimic the flat surface of a saucer. This ensures that all of the water rises by capillary action.

Big Dome

We read about the recently opened Tropical Islands dome in Germany, forgot to post it and were reminded by a link on the Apartment Therapy blog.

Of course a tropical island needs a tropical rainforest. This place looks like a one-up on Las Vegas. Where's the casino?

Read more about it here.

Cutting, Pruning Tools

Click to enlarge. Two of our cutting/pruning tools do 99% of the work. The third is for those who maintain Rhapis palms. All of them are widely available online.

The heaviest use is for the lightweight florist shears at the top. We think of them as both scissors and pruners. We use them for a wide variety of cutting/pruning jobs from trimming leaves to cutting thin plastics. In our opinion there is little or no need for typical outdoor gardening pruners.

This is particularly true if you have a pair of 8" concave cutters, considered the most important beginning bonsai tool. We use them constantly to prune Ficus and Schefflera arboricola branches. It's the best way to cut branches close to the trunk without leaving a stub.

When you cut with concave cutters the bark eventually heals over leaving little or no trace of the pruning scar. We even do a much better job of trimming Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum) leaves off at the base leaving a minimal stub.

If you maintain Rhapis palms, a pair of pinking shears does a great job of trimming frond tips. The pinking shears leave an edge that mimics the corrugated end of Rhapis frond tips.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

We frequently see pictures like this on the web and in books to illustrate houseplant or indoor plant care. Pretty picture but it sends the wrong message. Houseplant care isn’t backyard gardening but that’s what these tools are for.

We’ve updated our photoblog with some more plant care tools we use. You won’t see any clay pots, trowels or cultivators.

Hydroculture in Holland

Hydro Huisman is a wholesale supplier of (hydroculture) interior plants in the Netherlands. We have seen many interior plant facilities over the years, none looking more professional and prosperous. We are impressed to say the least.

Take the time to tour their facilities by clicking on "Impression Huissen" and "Impression Aalsmeer". To see their product line click on "Pricing Information" and to meet their staff click on "Our Profile".

Excerpt: Supplier to indoor landscape companies and green sector traders

Hydro Huisman is a first rate supplier to indoor landscape companies, garden centres and florists. Next to this Hydro Huisman exports among others to Germany, Swiss, Austria, Slovenia, France, Italy, Hungary, Kuwait, Saudi-Arabia, Taiwan and Korea.

Fat Begets Nonfat

We enjoyed this story about a green economic loop. Ralph and Lisa Turner pick up used cooking oil from local restaurants. The restaurants previously paid someone to pick it up. The Turners do it for free. What do they do with the oil? They burn it to heat their greenhouse where they grow vegetables to sell to the restaurants that give them the oil. Neat!

Jardinier Sub-Irrigation

Jardinier Sub Irrigation Systems has redesigned their website. I have used Jardinier sub-irrigation planters for many years and find them to be a first-rate product.

These Pothos in the Greenscaper Consumer Lab are a good example of results using Jardinier planters. These are six-inch size planters. The plants on the top shelf are over six years old in a low light environment in the range of 20 foot-candles average for a full day. I check and refill the planters on a two-week schedule. Water consumption is less than an ounce per day (.7 oz). I keep the vines trimmed.

Other than loss of variegation due to low light, the plants look almost as good as the day installed. I think six years and going strong is good longevity for a soft vining plant, even one as durable as Pothos.

I use a range of Jardinier planters up to 19” housing plants such as Rhapis, Kentia and Chamaedorea palms. I've also used them successfully for succulents such as Christmas cactus, Kalanchoe and Burro’s Tail (Sedum morganianum).

The keys to success with sub-irrgation planters of this type are to measure the water and only add it when soil moisture calls for it. The mistake that leads to over watering is adding water just because the reservoir is empty. Probe the soil to test moisture or use a scale.

I believe the inappropriate term "self-watering", used only at retail, is the leading cause of sub-irrigation planter misuse. I'll say it again, do not add water just because the reservoir is empty. Test the soil moisture first.

What's A Blog...Huh?

Here's some current media hype about blogs including a new Pew report. Maybe the subject matter of this blog isn't of great importance to society, but it is our thing. Perhaps it's yours too.

Thanks for reading this past year. We look forward to blogging along with you in 2005.

Got Pretzels?

Click to enlarge. We should have posted this before you bought your New Year celebration snacks. We discovered that a recycled UTZ pretzel container makes a very good propagating chamber. Can we get LEED credit for this?

We bought our UTZ pretzels at Costco but you can also find them online here. There are 2 sizes, 40 and 55 oz. It appears the 55-ounce container we buy at Costco is not available online. The dimensions are approximately; 40 oz – 11 ½” h x 6 ½” diameter. 55 oz – 12 ½” h x 8” diameter.

We use a mix of two parts vermiculite to one part SuperSoil. The mix is moist but does not stick together when squeezed. We also spray some water inside the container, which we keep closed. The propagating containers receive mostly fluorescent light in the range of 300 to 400 foot-candles for a 16-hour day. We have rooted Ficus, Schefflera and Dracaena sanderiana (Lucky Bamboo) cuttings in a few weeks. Aglaonema cuttings have taken much longer.

It works well and sure looks better than tacky looking glasses of water on our kitchen windowsill. Our success rate has been close to 100%.

New Year Outlook

There's a positive outlook for "houseplants" according to a survey done by the Garden Media Group. Let's hope their study is on target. We know we're not alone in looking forward to some significant growth in the inside plants market in 2005.

Excerpt: HOUSEPLANTS ARE IN. GREENLESS HOUSES ARE OUT. Ferns, snake plants and palms aren’t for your grandmother’s parlor any longer. Bigger houses with lots of open space and sun porches lend themselves beautifully to being filled with houseplants.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! We hope 2005 is everything you want it to be.