IKEA Majesty Palm Sale

DO NOT BUY FOR INDOOR USE

This graphic is from an IKEA email notice of a Labor Day Weekend sale. I added the caption in red below it.

A search will show that I'm a big fan of IKEA. However, not when they sell Majesty Palms like this. This ad doesn’t identify indoor or outdoor use but we all know that IKEA sells furniture mostly for indoor use. The IKEA Green Room is not an outdoor nursery.

My straightforward advice is do not buy these palms from IKEA or anyone else for use as an indoor plant. They are simply a bad product. Unfortunately to the average person they look like a Kentia Palm which is a classic indoor palm.

If you can't tell the difference, a low price like this is the give away. Kentia Palms are slow growing and thus cost more. They are durable, low light tolerant plants and worth the investment, particularly if you are wise enough to use measured sub-irrigation.

Read what Gary Antosh, a long time Florida tropical plant grower, has to say about Majesty Palms. I couldn't agree more with his sound advice.

Excerpt: DON'T BUY a Majesty Palm as an indoor plant unless you are looking for a challenge in plant care.

There are many other indoor palms that do much better:

Chamaedorea elegans 'Bella' - Parlor Palm
Chamaedorea Sefrizii - Bamboo Palm
Howea Fosteriana - Kentia Palm
Rhapis excelsa - Lady Palm

Apartment Death Watch

The title of this article in The Washington Post is 2BR, 1BA, 4 Dead Orchids. It’s a funny headline but frustratingly real world.

Excerpts: “I’m a serial plant killer,” said Connie Tzioumis, 31, a human rights analyst who works in Washington. “I have plants in my office and I’ve killed every one. I’ve also killed every plant in my apartment this year.”

Tzioumis’s co-worker, Tara Guelig, can relate. “I’m starting to get annoyed,” she said. “It’s a lot of money down the drain.” Guelig, 25, reels off her victims – a jade plant, a gerbera daisy, a hydrangea – oh, and an orchid.

This death watch is familiar to many who live in apartments, where light and humidity can be painfully low: A once-lush houseplant loses its vigor and starts to wilt. Extra water and a watchful eye do nothing to reverse the decline. The plant gradually dies and, with it, a little bit of the budding gardener.

The article describes the problem but unfortunately provides little help. That's not the fault of the reporter or the people interviewed. It's just a commentary on the sad state of so-called “house plant” care information.

Now whose fault is that? I've said it before. Based on all the research I've done over the past years to publish this blog the prime publisher of arcane plant care mythology is the U.S. Department of Agriculture through its Cooperative Extension and Master Gardener programs. I'll publish research information to summarize and support my conclusions in the coming week.

It is a mistake to think of indoor plants as merely a gardening hobby. They are an underutilized urban amenity with environmental and psychological benefits for those who live in densely populated cities.

We are long overdue to end the "Black Thumb Disease" (BTD) that plagues most of our non-gardening population. You will find many of the cures and answers by reading more on this blog. Please don't hesitate to comment or email me at bobhyland [at] insideplantslive [dot] org.

Less Than $10

Click to enlarge. This is a year round indoor plant…24/7, 365 days a year. It is not a so-called “house plant” that truth-be-known only lives indoors for 50-60% of the year and the rest of the time outdoors on a patio or in the yard.

This is just an ordinary 6” pot size Dracaena marginata from a big box store. Why in the world would you display it in its tacky plastic pot on a saucer when you could have this as a finished product for less than ten dollars...complete in a decorative planter with polished stones groundcover?

It’s growing in a clear plastic container inside an inexpensive plastic bowl (also from Wal-Mart) but it could just as well be a fine antique. When you water by measured sub-irrigation, you do not need a drainage hole no matter how many books or websites say you do. It’s easy to prove it to yourself.

Furthermore, when you maintain it by sub-irrigation, the plant will be healthier, live longer, and take less of your time. You also will not have fungus gnats because the soil surface is always dry as it should be even though the soil where the roots are is evenly moist...also as it should be.

Starlights Pruned

Click to enlarge. Pruning was the next step after splitting the Ficus benjamina Starlight. The plants were pruned and will develop thicker trunks because of it. The cuttings bundles (several stems each) are stuck into Grodan (rockwool) cubes. They will hopefully develop roots in a propagator. I recently bought a tray and dome lid propagator but this would also work.

And Then There Were Two

Click to enlarge. The Ficus benjamina Starlight previously shown here is no longer one plant with many trunks.

One clean stroke with a sharp chef’s knife and then there were two, each with five trunks.

Each of them is installed in a clear plastic storage container inside a decorative cachepot with no holes. There’s an aquapad under each inner container to facilitate capillary action.

Remember when watering that up is good and down isn't.

The next step is some pruning to shorten the long thin branches.

Ficus benjamina Starlight

Click to enlarge. This apparently is a Ficus benjamina Starlight according to the cryptic label information “Starlight Fi”. I bought it at Lowe’s for $7.97. I’m always looking for small leaf Ficus plants to make into tabletop trees. They are hard to find here in San Diego. This hybrid however has leaves that appear to be smaller because of the variegation.

My guess is that most of these trees will likely end up in someone’s home as you see it here. It will still be in the grow pot with a plastic saucer under it. To me that is like someone sitting around the house in their underwear.

This plant is an unfinished product to my eyes. It is significantly overgrown with long spindly branches. Growers simply cannot afford the labor cost of pruning but you can easily do it.

I will probably transform it by splitting it into two plants with some cuttings left over. Who knows how many little trees will be born.

I'll post a photo of whatever I do.

Candle Bowl Planters

Click to enlarge. Here is another clear glass planter idea made possible by expanded clay pebble sub-irrigation (aka hydroculture). These affordable bowls are from a big box store and could hold a variety of different plants that have been proven to be easily converted from soil media to clay pebble media.

In addition to Ficus benjamina, the list of soil based plants I've successfully converted to clay pebble media includes Aglaonema, Spathiphyllum, Chamaedorea elegans, Pothos, Dracaena Janet Craig compacta, and Sansevieria. I'm convinced that hydroconversion is by no means limited to just this short list of indoor plant favorites.

Think about these as gifts as well as your own office or at home plants.

Are you bug-eyed? These glasses mite help

Click to enlarge.

If you have mites, there is no might about them. They are definitely indoor plant enemies and difficult to detect. These glasses will help you find tiny mites that can wreck havoc with your indoor plants. They will also help you find scale and mealybugs and any other critters that can damage your well cared for plant friends.

Pest “scouting” as it is called by greenhouse growers is one of the most important things you can do for your plants. Early detection is one of the best prevention and control methods.

I should know better after all these years but I paid the price of losing my loupe last year (probably not all I lost). A large number of tabletop Ficus plants in the lab were infested with mites because of my failure in doing a good scouting job. I finally treated them and the plants are only now coming back with a flush of new leaves. You can see a couple of mite damaged leaves in the foreground.

These loupes came from eBay seller Barton Jones in Utah. The small 10x 18mm jeweler’s loupe has an LED light. Barton also recommended the larger 10x 48mm loupe for older eyes. It was a good idea. Incidently, it was handy recently in locating some tiny cactus needles in my finger. They’re hard to find without a magnifier.

Read Barton’s consumer guide "Jeweler Loupe, tips on choosing the one you need". It’s most informative and created a good first impression of him which was confirmed by the transaction. If you don't have a loupe I would recommend you buy one from him.

Hidden Hydroculture

Click to enlarge. This is a tabletop interior design amenity meant to look good and provide a touchstone to the natural world even if only iconic. There is also strong evidence that plants like this will help to improve your indoor air quality and your interior mindset.

Please don’t just think of it as either a “house plant” or “bonsai.” Both of these names conjure up a host of issues concerning a need for specialized skills. With all due respect to outdoor gardeners and bonsai masters, it’s simply not necessary to have a so-called green thumb or be a bonsaist to maintain this little tree.

Think of it as an indoor plant for every man, every woman, and every child. Anyone can maintain this plant as long as it’s located in adequate light. You do not need to be a gardener, have a green thumb, or know how to poke your finger into the soil to test it for moisture. Young children can easily take care of a tree like this and keep it as a pet.

Polished pebbles, Creeping fig and a few rocks on the surface conceal the fact that this 7-year-old Ficus benjamina is growing in expanded clay pebbles. Unlike the so-called bonsai with glued pebble groundcover there is no problem in watering this tree.

There is a pipette tube adjacent to the rock on the right. Simply insert a ¼” plastic pipette tube hold your finger over the end and you can clearly see the water level when you remove the pipette tube.

Just be sure not to add water until the pipette tube shows only about 1/4" in the bottom. By doing this you are re-oxygenating the media. If you keep the media saturated (topped off constantly) you will drown the plant and it will die. The same is true for sub-irrigation using soil (erroneously referred to as "self-watering").

The tree is growing in a microwave food cover inside the melamine bowl. This plant could also grow in artificial soil mix. The only difference would be the need to lift the clear plastic inner planter periodically to check the soil moisture.

Caring for this tabletop tree can be done on a fixed schedule to suit your time demands. Don’t let anyone tell you can’t. It's easy to prove it to yourself. Most busy people don’t have the time or interest to be daily plant nannies.

Plant Rack Bargain

Click to enlarge. My local Costco stores are offering a $10 rebate on the six shelf 6’ x 4’ x 1.5’ Inter-Metro style chrome adjustable rack imported by Seville Classics, Inc from China. The net price is $62.99 until August 23. They are a bargain even without the rebate. I highly recommend them. Hopefully this is a nationwide offer.

The World Foliage Plant Industry

This is a most interesting article (PDF format) about the foliage plant industry worldwide. The authors are Jianjun Chen, Dennis B. McConnell and Richard J. Henny all of the University of Florida. I'm in the process of converting it to a MS Word document. If you are interested in a copy, post an email request to me at bobhyland[at] insideplantslive.org.

First section excerpt: During the last century and a half, the foliage plant industry has become truly global. The current situation can be simplified as four centers of foliage plant origins (Africa, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America), four regions producing propagules (Asia, Central and South America, Europe, and North America), and three regions of finished plant production (Asia, Europe, and North America). Today someone living in Poland may be watering a Dieffenbachia cultivar in his home that was initially propagated in a tissue culture laboratory in China, finished in the United States, and then sold at the Aalsmeer auction in the Netherlands. That scenario omits the fact that the Dieffenbachia species used to develop the cultivar were collected in Brazil and Colombia and then hybridized in England!

Foliage plants, defined literally, would include plants grown for their beautiful leaves rather than for flowers or fruits. In general horticultural terms, foliage plants are those with attractive foliage and/or flowers that are able to survive and grow indoors (Fig. 1). Thus, foliage plants are used as living specimens for interior decoration or interior plantscaping (Fig. 2). In common terminology, foliage plants are referred to as houseplants. However, in the tropics they may also be grown under shade as landscape plants (Fig. 3).

Starting from cuttings, tissue cultured liners, or seeds, foliage plants are generally produced in soilless media confined by containers in shaded greenhouses or shadehouses. Some foliage plants used as interiorscape trees are grown in full sun for the first part of their production cycle, and then grown under shade. Regardless of their specific production protocols, all plants have to be managed properly including light, temperature, water, fertilization, and pest control until they approach marketable sizes called finished plants (Chen et al., 2005). The plants are then acclimatized, graded, and shipped to destinations for interiorscaping. Acclimatization is a seriate procedure in which light intensity, nutrient supply, and irrigation frequency are reduced to anatomically and physiologically alter the plant so that it will survive and even thrive after shipping and placement in an interior environment. Small pot plants may require several weeks to acclimatize, while large interior trees may require a minimum of six months.

Therefore, the complete foliage plant cycle comprises: (1) plant propagation via tissue culture, rooting of cuttings, or seed germination; (2) production of marketable plants from tissue cultured liners, rooted cuttings, or seed- lings; and (3) postproduction plant care, including shipment, interiorscape installation, and maintenance. Because of their varied growth habits, multitude of foliar charms, brilliant patterns of leaf variegation and texture, elegant flower shapes and colors, as well as tolerance to low light levels, foliage plants have become an integral part of contemporary design for building interiors and play an important role in our daily lives. Plants bring beauty and comfort to our surroundings, contribute to the psychological well-being of people, and remind us of nature (Manaker, 1997).

In addition, plants in building interiors reduce dust, act as natural humidifiers Lohr and Pearson-Mims, 1996), and purify indoor air. A NASA-funded project concluded that foliage plants can remove nearly 87% of air pollutants from sealed chambers within 24 hours. For example, each Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum ‘Mauna Loa’) plant removed 16, 27, and 41 mg formaldehyde, trichloroethylene, and benzene, respectively, from sealed chambers after a 24-hr exposure to the respective chemical (Wolverton et al., 1989). Later, researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Cornejo et al., 1999), from Germany (Giese et al., 1994), Australia (Wood et al., 2002), and Japan (Oyabu et al., 2003) also demonstrated that foliage plants are able to abate toxic levels of air-borne pollutants in building interiors.

The esthetic and psychological enhancement of interior environments and purification of indoor air have become catalysts in promoting foliage plant production and increasing their wholesale value. For instance, the wholesale value of foliage plants in the United States (U.S.) increased from $13 million in 1949 to $663 million in 2002, which was a 51-fold increase in 53 years. With increasing worldwide urbanization and an innate desire for naturalistic environments within our building interiors, foliage plant production and utilization have become a truly globalized industry. Propagation, production, and interior use of foliage plants as well as plant related transportation, retail sales, and services contribute significantly to the world economy and our sense of well-being.

Read the rest of the article here in PDF format.