The Peanut Planter

This is called the Peanut Planter from Architectural Pottery. I found it on the Pure Contemporary website Product Guide.

You could replicate this with Dracaena marginata sub-irrigated in either potting soil or expanded clay pebbles (aka hydroculture). Pretty cool eh?

Decorate With Indoor Plants

Nice to read an article on the PureContemporary.com Behind the Curtains blog promoting the use of indoor plants. Note that indoor plants are number one on the list of recommendations.

Seven Tips for Creating Eco-Fabulous Interiors

Use these ideas from the National Resources Defense Council to help turn any space into a stylish, inviting and eco-friendly venue, whether you're remodeling a home or designing for a special event.

1. Decorate with Plants
Plants can act as natural air filters, removing harmful chemicals like benzene and carbon monoxide from the indoor air. And they look great too, giving your home a more natural and vibrant feel. The best plants for improving indoor air quality include the peace lily, bamboo palm and gerbera daisy.

Read the rest of the article here.

Natasja or Natasha…Looking Good

Click to see the original (larger) Flickr photo by "Schattenbaum" in Germany.

I happened to find two photos of these neat looking little trees on Flickr and both are from Germany, both from IKEA. They are likely from the same grower. Ficus benjamina Natasja (Natasha in the U.S.) is certainly an attractive plant. Has anyone seen these here in the U.S.?

These are tissue culture (micropropagation) plants with multiple trunks tied together. They will eventually fuse together and you won’t be able to tell that they were once individual trunks.

I’ve done this with both tissue culture Ficus plants and rooted cuttings. It’s a great technique to create a mature looking tree in a shorter time.

This too is a Ficus benjamina Natasja. It's a prize winning bonsai from the Netherlands. It's reported to be over 11 years old. It's likely this was also a tissue culture plant. It's certainly a positive look at the potential of these little trees.

Wall Decor: Botanical Study

From Home Accents Today

Tracy Bulla -- Home Accents Today - Nature in all its glory continues to be celebrated in home accents, with wall decor no exception to the rule. Classic, antique prints mark one end of the style spectrum, ranging all the way to organic, sculptural designs at the other. Whatever your preference, the all-natural look has gone far beyond a trend — making its way to a mainstay for the home.

Consider a quality plant and planter on a pedestal too!

Compact Fluorescent Desklamp

Click to enlarge. Does it look like some creature from outer space is visiting this little Ficus tree? It’s a $10 desk lamp from Wal-Mart.

With a 27-watt (100-watt incandescent equivalent) compact fluorescent bulb, it provides more than enough light to keep a Ficus very happy on your workspace wherever it is. The range of light from the bottom to the top of the foliage is about 200 to 2000 foot-candles.

The bulb was too long for the lampshade so I extended the shade with a recycled food container. I spray painted the container flat black after cutting off the bottom half. It press fit inside the reflector so well that it didn’t need glue and it doesn’t get hot.

You can judge how it looks compared to these lamps from prior posts. It’s certainly less expensive.

Click to enlarge. This is a close-up of the compact fluorescent (CF) bulb. You can’t tell in the photo that it’s a “daylight” bulb providing natural white light. Most of the CF bulbs you see in stores are “warm light.” Warm light is yellow light that is comparable to the light from traditional incandescent bulbs.

Incidentally, it’s necessary to read the packaging very carefully to find “daylight” bulbs. The words are not prominently displayed and the bulbs are all the same color white.

I’ve gotten very used to the light from daylight bulbs and much prefer it. To my eye, it’s much more compatible with the green color of plants and it emulates natural outdoor light.

In my opinion, we have so much so-called “warm light” not because of preference but rather the technology of incandescent bulbs that leaves no choice.

Whichever you prefer, CF bulbs provide a choice, and more important they save significant energy.

Hydroculture – Double Potting

Click to enlarge. Someday there may be two-piece planter sets similar to these available at retail. That is if we can get the word about modern indoor plant care techniques beyond the “garden wall” and into the general population. There are estimated to be well over 200 million non-gardeners in the U.S. What an untapped marketing potential.

“Double potting” (a grow pot inside a decorative container) is a sub-irrigation method that works equally as well using soil or expanded clay pebble media (aka hydroculture).

Double potting is essential when planting in potting soil media. Direct planting in clay pebbles works because of the large inert particle size and pore spaces but it doesn’t work well in potting soil.

You’ll more than likely overwater the plants if you direct plant with soil. It’s also messy if you need to remove or repot the plant. It’s easy with clay pebbles however. They’re inert, reusable, and easy to handle. It’s not a hygienic problem to work with them in the kitchen sink.

The planter on the left is a 12” melamine bowl from Party City. I’ve also found this size melamine bowl in the supermarket from time to time. The Mainstays (Wal-Mart) clear plastic microwave food cover fits into a 12” melamine bowl as if made for it.

It needs a series of holes around the periphery at the lowest point of the bottom (1/2” apart is good). You can drill them or use a hot poker. I use a metal kitchen skewer heated over my gas stove. Just as in the direct planting method, I install a pipette tube when using expanded clay pebble sub-irrigation (aka hydroculture).

Note the scrap cutting of polyester batting inside the cover. There is a circular piece of this material to fit the bottom of the food cover. It facilitates capillary action. I call it an AquaPad .

Here are more photos of plants installed in microwave food covers. I use them primarily for bonsai-style tabletop trees (Ficus and Dwarf Schefflera). Use your imagination to create other miniature landscapes.

The ceramic planter on the right is from IKEA. One of the good things about IKEA’s plant department is the array of decorative planters without drain holes. However, one of the annoying things about many IKEA ceramic planters is that a 6” grow pot will not fit into them. A solution is to repot the plant into a clear plastic container that fits or into a 5” mesh hydroponics basket.

The net pot in the photo is 5” dia. x 4” h. It fits perfectly into IKEA planters made for tabletop 6” plants. The ½” pipette access tube is fastened with a twist tie to the side of the basket.

AeroGarden Critical Review

After reading this critical review of the AeroGarden, I posted it for feedback from other owners on the Flickr AeroGarden group.

The web can be a powerful consumer communication channel. Note that there is provision for comments at the end of the review. Hopefully there will be other points of view expressed by AeroGarden owners.

Previous AeroGarden posts.

Hydroculture Comments

Better oxygenation - One of the surprises of converting half the Greenscaper Consumer Lab plants to expanded clay pebble sub-irrigation (aka hydroculture) was to find it necessary to increase watering frequency for many of them. The bonsai style desktop trees and other small plants now require weekly watering rather than bi-weekly.

The good news is that this is indicative of better oxygenation of the media. I believe there is more evaporation of the water, particularly with the bonsai style trees that have a larger surface area. There is also larger pore space between the pebbles.

Larger tabletop plants (equivalent to 8" pot size plants) in hydroculture are still on a two-week schedule along with other potting soil media plants.

One ¼” pipette rather than many – I included a ¼” pipette in the access tube for each planter in the photo for illustration purposes. This is not necessary. You only need one longer pipette to use as a tool for checking the moisture in all of your plants. It doesn’t need to reside in the access tube.

Also, you will find that the clear plastic clouds up with precipitated salts over time. Merely clean the pipettes with vinegar or a product like Lime-A-Way.

Hydroculture - Direct Planting Method

Healthy Root Ball

Click to enlarge.

The small tree with small leaves was converted from soil media to expanded clay pebble sub-irrigation (aka hydroculture) a couple of years ago. I used a direct planting method since I didn’t have a clear plastic grow pot to fit inside the blue bonsai pot.

This is what the tree looks like out of the pot. You might think the clay pebbles remain loose in the planter. Not so. Over time, roots envelope the expanded clay pebbles and create a root ball. This, of course, is what happens in potting soil except in this case the media particle size is much larger.

Notice that the roots are black. Conventional gardening wisdom would say that they’re unhealthy. Au contraire, they are very healthy witness the obvious health of the little tree.

Pipette Tubes

Click to enlarge. The key to success when using this direct planting method is the pipette tube. It is a virtually fail-safe method of checking the water level. Merely insert a ¼” clear plastic pipette tube into the ½” receptor tube. Hold your finger over the tube end and withdraw from the receptor tube. The exact water level will show in the pipette tube as long as you maintain the vacuum.

It’s a good idea to anchor the bottom of the pipette access tube. The pipette tube assembly is simple. I recycle plastic caps from milk and juice containers. Drill a half inch hole in the center. If you don’t have a drill motor you can punch and enlarge a series of holes with a hot poker to create a half inch hole. The plastic caps are pliable so that you can force fit the tubing even if the hole isn’t perfectly round.

When you pour the clay pebbles around the pipette tube the caps will do a good job of anchoring the tube.

It’s been a matter of trail and error to gauge the full and empty levels. It isn’t an exact science but I use a rough fill level measurement of about ¼ to 1/3 the height of the container. I refill only when the water level has dropped to the bottom or close to it.

Clear Glass

Click to enlarge. Some use clear glass containers exclusively so that they can see the water level. This limits usage to clear containers. Further, the expanded clay pebbles are clearly visible. This is not always aesthetically pleasing.

For example, I would have used an opaque heart shaped container instead of clear glass for this Happy Valentines Day planter if I had one. The pebbles are distracting to my eye. Incidentally, I install a pipette tube even in a clear glass planter because it’s a more accurate means of water level measurement as compared to eyeballing it.

Bonsai Style Containers

Click to enlarge. Back to the little tree. You can see that it is living in a so-called bonsai pot, which is relatively expensive. Further, bonsai pots have drain holes which need plugging. I use clear Goop.

There are containers in the style of bonsai pots that are widely available. You can find soup and rice bowls with an oriental, bonsai-style motif in the kitchen and housewares department. They’re readily available in the $3-5 dollar range. The rectangular planter on the right is a baking dish.

Commercial Water Level Indicators

As previously mentioned, a means of checking the water level is essential. Commercially available hydroculture planters have a built-in water level indicator. They have a red floating indicator to tell you when to add water. Note that you need a water level indicator of the right height to fit the height of the plant container.

Since I prefer to plant in a wide variety of containers, a more readily available method is desirable not to mention lower cost. The pipette tube costs next to nothing and can be easily cut to fit the height of any plant container. It’s a convenient and very accurate hydroculture accessory.

AeroGarden Group on Flickr

Click icon. There is now an AeroGarden group on Flickr. There are only a few members but it just started on February 5. There are also now over 150 photos. Flickr seems to be an excellent resource for information and consumer feedback if you’re thinking about buying an AeroGarden.

It’s good to see a product like the AeroGarden having such success in the mainstream marketplace. They are a public company and if you read their executive profiles, you’ll see that experienced business people run this company. Incidentally, the International Housewares Association recently recognized AeroGarden with a “Best in Category” award.

AeroGarden is marketed as a consumer product rather than a “gardening” product per se. The original product positioning was as a kitchen appliance targeted to home and professional chefs.

I’ve long believed that maintenance of plants in buildings is much more like cooking than gardening. Measurement of light and water is the key to success. Unfortunately, the use of digital foot-candle (or lux) light meters, digital scales, and soil probes is virtually unknown in the rather techo-averse “houseplant” gardening world.

I own no stock in AeroGarden nor have I purchased one yet. At some point in time I probably will buy one but indoor vegetable growing is not a top priority just now.

Update Thursday, February 22, 2007

Boulder, CO – February 22, 2007 - AeroGrow International, Inc. (OTC BB: AGWI) ("AeroGrow" or the "Company"), makers of the AeroGarden™ kitchen garden appliance, announced today that the AeroGarden has just passed the 100,000 unit sales milestone. The Company began selling the AeroGarden in March 2006.

Read the full press release.

Small Tree, Small Leaves

Click to enlarge. Note the small leaves on this little tree. I’ve been collecting 6” pot size Ficus benjamina plants with small leaves since starting the Greenscaper Consumer Lab in 1998. I’ve been rooting cuttings from these little trees.

The small leaves are desirable because they’re more in scale with the size of a tabletop tree. This one was made up from rooted cuttings in October 2001. Several cuttings were tied together to create a thicker trunk.

Whenever I’m plant shopping I look for Ficus benjamina plants with small leaves. It’s like a treasure hunt. They have no tags identifying them as small leaf trees. Incidentally, I have not found one for a long time.

All of the tabletop Ficus benjamina trees you see here in this Flickr.com photo set were either grown on from 6” pot size plants or made up from rooted cuttings. They are all small leaf trees.

So, why can’t we buy them as such at retail with labels identifying them for use as tabletop trees?

Happy Valentines Day

Click to enlarge.

More Pedestals and Plant Stands

Plantstands.com specializes in pedestals and plant stands. Find pedestals here, plant stands here and tiered plant stands here.

Read prior posts on this topic here and here

Houseplant Modernity

Some "houseplant" high tech from Smith & Hawkin. Note the use of the word ingenious. Maybe it's time we moved out of the 9th century don't you think?

Thumb Pot Watering Can An ingenious method for watering plants dating back to the 9th century, this thumbpot is great for windowsill and herb gardens.

• Traditionally crafted from clay
• Simply hold your thumb over the hole at the top of the pot—release to water
• Unique gift idea
• Holds 12 fl. oz.

4" Dia. x 4 1/2" H

Lucky Bamboo - New Shoots

Click to enlarge. Is Lucky Bamboo the most popular indoor plant in America? One could argue that it is. How did a Dracaena of humble origins gain such fame? Dracaena sanderiana has been around in the houseplant world for decades. It’s common name is Ribbon Plant.

Did you know that Dracaena sanderiana is also marketed in the form of cut greens or cut foliage (tip cuttings or stems)? That’s what these are. I bought a number of solid and variegated stems at a local farmer’s market back in 2003 and rooted them in a propagating chamber (aka recycled UTZ pretzel container).

These stems are sub-irrigated in expanded clay pebbles (aka hydroculture). The four healthy looking stems in the foreground are all new growth. The second from the right is an offset and the other three grew from below the surface of the pebbles.

I’ve also grown some Lucky Bamboo canes (both straight and spiral) from IKEA. The tip cuttings (floral stems) are still going strong while the canes were trashed some time ago. I wouldn’t buy them again. Grow them successfully and they look like weeds in short order.

The “Tiny Tim” offsets are so thin and spindly that they are highly subject to phototropism. They grow towards the nearest light. It’s virtually impossible to grow them straight and there’s no pruning technique to correct the problem.

Unfortunately, the floral cut stems (tip cuttings) are not readily available at retail. If you’re interested check with your friendly local florist. I paid $1.50 per stem at the farmer’s market.

Here is a chronicle of Lucky Bamboo growth on Flickr.com. You can see a wide array of plant forms, some attractive and others rather homely. In my opinion, the ones that look good are relatively new plants.

Short-term plant life is fine for some but not my interest. I prefer to spend my time cultivating “investment grade” indoor plants. These slow growing plants have a long life and look good over the course of that long life. They may require some pruning and grooming but they are amenable to it. Lucky Bamboo doesn’t meet these long life standards.

But hey, have fun with them if it’s your thing. Just also consider some better alternatives that don’t have a “lucky” or “money” name. More about Money Trees (braided Pachira) in a future post.

Display Pedestals

Here are some more display pedestals. These are from HomeDecorators.com

Decorative display pedestals can beautifully showcase artwork, a plant or a collection of photos. Home Decorators Collection offers pedestal stands in a variety of styles and materials, including fascia marble pedestals, tapered pedestals, storage pedestals and more. Add a unique display pedestal to your home today.