Just Add Water

Continuing the subject of sprouts, just add water and this is what you get . I'm not sure how it works, but evidently it does.

Calvin (Ngan Tengyuen) a blogger who publishes mirage.studio.7 posted about the card on November 6th, 2006. Evidently he found it surfing the Epica Awards website. The card, belonging to Tur & Partners, Landscape Architects in Germany, was a 2004 Direct Marketing category finalist in the Epica Awards .

Since the post on mirage.studio.7 last year, the card has just recently been passed around the blogosphere . It has been interesting to read many of these posts writing (or speculating) about how it works.

In any case it is a creative idea that sprouted from the minds of Tur & Partners. and certainly appropriate for a Landscape Architecture firm.

Ficus Beanjamina

Click to enlarge. Remember this bean idea ? Well, the little black “bean pebbles” have been sprouting. No harm, no foul, I’ve been trimming them off with no harm to the bean cover.

Then, I decided to share the unexpected sprouting and let them grow for a new portrait. The little tree has been on my desk and it’s been like time-lapse photography to watch the beans sprout and grow. Like grow, as in fast! So, I have renamed it Ficus beanjamina. Bear with me; I’ve gotta find some fun in all this.

Remember it wasn’t my idea, it’s all Danny Seo’s fault. Just kidding. The beans are still a good idea if you like fresh bean sprouts.

The World Wide Web is a Lot More Than English

As previously mentioned, much of the best technical information about the care of plants in buildings is in languages other than English (German and Dutch for example). This can be frustrating for monolingual Americans like me. An article in the Wall Street Journal this week highlighted the Internet language problem and announced a search improvement from Google.

Excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article:

Linguistically speaking, the World Wide Web has a way to go to live up to its name. As the number of Internet users expands globally, most consumers can still only access content in their native language, unless, like Mr. Bevilacqua, they are multilingual. But now, well-known search companies are trying to help bridge those language gaps with more sophisticated language-translation tools aiming to provide the most comprehensive search results no matter what language the user is searching in.

The push comes as U.S. search giants are focused on gaining market share overseas, where the search and search-advertising industries are generally less mature than in the U.S.

At the same time, the relative share of the searchable Web that is in English is falling fast, roughly estimated at around 30% to 40%, according to Roger Bohn, a professor at the University of California in San Diego, requiring search engines to find a way to translate more pages faster or risk falling behind.

The announcement from Google is that you can now search in your native language and get the results from a search in another language.

For example , let’s search on the English word “hydroculture” and ask for results in German. While you’re at it take a look at the results in French and Japanese. You'll discover some interesting results. Unfortunately, Dutch is not yet one of the Google language translation options. The Netherlands is a world leader in many aspects of interior horticulture, including hydroculture.

The first hit in German is the wonderful website DGHK (hydroculture.org). If you are really interested in modern methods of maintaining plants in buildings you can justify spending a lot of time on this site. I've found nothing like it in the U.S. That reminds me. If you haven't yet visited the U.K. site Plants_in_Buildings , it's a world class website.

While there’s a long way to go in the quality of computer translation, Google is slowly improving translated results, enough so that you can definitely get the gist of the content. So, take a search trip in the language of your choice. There’s a lot of good info out there in languages other than English.

Googling Redirection

My primary source of information for IPL has been web searching using key words related to houseplants, indoor plants, horticulture, etc. One or more of the following adjectives…boring, repetitious, and inaccurate could describe most of what I find in the mainstream media. I’m tired of reading it and you probably would be too if I posted it.

Have no fear, Google to the rescue. I’ve recently discovered that Google has significantly improved blog searching, which by the way is a separate category of searching. With that, I’ve discovered a wealth of interesting and creative stuff about inside plants, some practical, and some rather loopy and far out. But hey, that’s where products and styles of the future are born.

Green geeks, designers, architects, artists, and people who simply have an eye for good design write many of these interesting blogs. So, you’ll notice the source of many future posts will be from this creative sphere of the blogosphere.

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Sunburned Houseplants

Articles with questions about moving so-called houseplants outdoors are popular at this time of year. This is one of them.

It was particularly timely since I passed a good candidate for leaf scorch on my way back and forth to the gym this evening. A new restaurant has a couple of Corn Plants (Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana') in IKEA self-watering planters.

The planters are another story for another post. The significance here is that they moved one of them outside on the sidewalk by the entrance. I’m sure they don’t realize how easy it is to scorch the leaves on a corn plant.

Let’s put this in context of this Q & A article.

Question: The weather has been so warm that I thought it was safe to put my houseplants outside. After only one day outside I noticed that the leaves on some of them had turned white! What happened? Was there a frost?

Answer:
You have described the symptoms of sunburn in plants. If plants are grown indoors through the winter in a location with bright, but indirect light, they often form "shade leaves". Shade leaves develop under conditions of relatively low light. They efficiently produce food for the plants, but many loose the ability to tolerate exposure to full sunlight. They must be gradually exposed to full sunlight (hardened off). This is done by gradually increasing their time in full sunlight from a few minutes to longer and longer periods.

Some plants will adapt without drastic changes, but some plants will drop their shade leaves and form new sun leaves. Sun leaves have protective mechanisms to protect them from full sunlight. If your plants begin dropping leaves as you change their environmental conditions, this is probably the cause. Leaf drop can also happen when plants are moved indoors in the fall. In the fall, sun leaves may be discarded and new shade leaves formed.

Comment: The vast majority of houseplants are grown in greenhouse or shade houses under approximately 2,000 foot-candles of light. In gardener’s terms, this is shade. The plant comes to you with shade acclimated leaves.

Average daylight at noon on a sunny day in the U.S. is about 10,000 foot-candles. The risk of sun scorch at any light level in excess of 2,000 foot-candles is high. It is extremely tricky to place these shade acclimated plants in a dance with the sun. Do it and you have a high risk of sun scorch.

More than likely what he is talking about is a Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina). It is the only plant that does what he describes. It is arguably the only interior plant where research has been done on the subject of sun and shade leaves. Most experienced interior plantscapers are well aware of this research done by the Apopka Research Center .

Answer continued… In the case of your injured plants, the leaves have been burned. They will fall and new leaves must be produced. If the plants are healthy, they should do this with little difficulty. While the plants are producing new leaves, they will need moisture. However, since there are far fewer (or no) leaves remaining, the plant will use less water than before. Reduce watering, but don't let the soil dry out completely. As the new leaves develop, water use will increase and irrigation must be gradually increased as leaves are formed.

Comment: Nonsense, it will take a long time for new leaves to replace sun scorched leaves on most indoor plants of quality. In most cases it’s easier to start over with a new plant, lesson learned.

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Houseplants Survey Information

Following is some interesting information about indoor houseplants from the Garden Writers Association Foundation. It is excerpted from Fall 2004 Garden Trends Research. This is a PDF file.

It was particularly interesting that in most categories, those with high incomes were more likely to purchase for their garden. Low-income buyers were more likely to purchase indoor houseplants and fall vegetables.

This is not surprising from my experience monitoring houseplant forums. There is much conversation about penny saving and buying small 4" pot size plants. Cost is a recurrent issue and there is significant traffic in exchanging cuttings for propagation.

Unfortunately, there is a lack of marketing leadership to elevate indoor plants as a more upmarket home design amenity. Big box retailers, who dominate the market, sell houseplants much like produce. There is a decided lack of creative presentation.

Also not surprising is that 6 of 10 buyers are female. Again, from houseplant forum experience I would have guessed even higher, perhaps as high as 80% female. I wonder how many men purchase houseplants as gifts for women.

Note the sole category where male buyers were slightly in the majority (53.3%) was trees and shrubs. This is also observable on the web if you monitor bonsai forums. This is where more guys hang out talking about miniature tray trees.

Women camp out on the houseplant forums. Their priority is flowering houseplants, which presents a significant challenge due to inadequate light. This, no doubt, motivates the migration of so many winter houseplants that become outdoor “around the house” plants in the spring.

Excerpts regarding indoor houseplants

• Fall flowers, indoor houseplants and mulch were tops on the planned buying list for gardeners.

• In most categories, those in the high income were more likely to purchase for their garden. Low-income gardeners were more likely to purchase indoor houseplants and fall vegetables

Continued Activity

The buying spree continued with indoor houseplants coming in second (for the second year)
on their list of planned purchases for the season. These gardeners were looking forward to continuing their green thumb activities indoors for the winter.

Fall Gardening Overview

• Fall flowers, indoor houseplants and mulch were tops on the planned buying list for gardeners

• In most categories, those in the high income were more likely to purchase for their garden. Low-income gardeners were more likely to purchase indoor houseplants and fall vegetables

Indoor Plants & Vegetables
Those gardeners in a high-income bracket naturally were more likely to purchase garden or yard items in most cases. This was true for all categories except for indoor houseplants and vegetables where the lowest income earners were the most likely to purchase.

Houseplants

Indoor houseplants followed a similar trend among gardeners who planned purchases. Most of the planned buying was in the south (36%) followed by the northeast (24.8%). The most likely to purchase this type of plant were the 25-44 year olds (40.2%) with the 45 – 64 year old group closely following (33.3%). Also predictably, more females (60.2%) than males (39.8%) planned to purchase indoor plants.

In looking at gardeners by age, the predominant spending group was the 25 to 44 year olds for the entire range of item categories (fall flowers, indoor house plants, trees or shrubs, perennial plants, fall decoration, and fall vegetables) except for two areas. The bulbs and mulch-buying gardener was more likely (or just as likely) to be older (45 – 64 years).

Mulch, Trees & Shrubs

In fact, female gardeners planned to make the majority of the yard or garden item purchases this fall in all categories (fall flowers, indoor house plants, mulch, perennial plants, fall decoration, bulbs and fall vegetables) except for one! Females were the driving force behind the planned garden spending last fall. Surprisingly, this also included those planning to buy mulch. The one area in the fall season where slightly more male gardeners are buying (53.3% male vs. 46.7% female) was in the purchase of trees or shrubs.

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New Green Dorm

These are photos of dorm rooms in the new green (LEED certified) Langdon Woods dormitory at Plymouth State University (Plymouth, NH). See more photos here.

Now what do these green dorm rooms need when students move in? Hint. I see windows. This compact fluorescent desk lamp would work well too.

Plymouth State University's newest residence hall Langdon Woods will be housing 347 students and be completely air conditioned. The building has taken form over the last few months and is now near completion. Students have begun to move in and it will be open for residents for school opening, though there will still be ongoing work to do in some areas. Check out the huge amount of insulation being used to keep this LEED Certified building nice and warm.

Read more about the new Langdon Woods dormitory.

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Natural Light From a Tube

Photos - NW Natural Lighting

From the Natural Living blog.

Solatubes are a great addition to any green home. They are an innovative, tubular-shaped skylight. They are innovative because they do not require restructuring your home to install them. They take only about two hours for an unexperienced person to install. Since they are only 10-21 inches round, they can be installed between the beams of your home. Yet, they sure do brighten a room! If you install one in a bathroom with no windows, you will probably not have to turn on the lights at all during daylight hours, saving on energy.

In fact, your plants will thrive in a windowless room under the light provided by a Solatube. You can even have a traditional light for night time and a fan for a bathroom installed into the product, if you desire.

There are many more photos of Solatubes (and solar tubes) here.

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Some Wise Words About Moving Indoor Acclimated Plants Outside

Scorched Lucky Bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) and Dwarf Schefflera (Scheffera arboricola)

Gary Antosh has some words to the wise about moving indoor plants outside in the spring and back inside in the fall. It can take a very long time for a plant to grow new leaves to replace irreparably scorched leaves. In most cases, it's better to acknowledge the mistake and buy a new plant.

Acclimating Indoor Plants
Moving Houseplants Outdoors
Sunburned Houseplants

There's an article a day on the web about the practice, mostly written by outdoor gardeners and greenhouse horticulturists. While they may know a lot about outdoor gardening and greenhouse growing, they demonstrate a weakness in their knowledge about the care of plants in buildings.

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Drench, Drain and Damage

The following happened on a new $5,000 floor.

Nope, its not that we walk around pouring buckets of water across the floor and we don't use a wet mop to keep it clean. In our living room, a large house plant was inadvertantly over-watered, and it leaked out on the floor, not to be discovered for a few days. The planking has buckled and warped.

Drench and drain watering with saucers belongs outside. Period!

Thanks to the horribly bad advice from USDA (land grant university) Extension Programs and scientifically anemic houseplant books and columns the practice is pervasive.

It is a bad idea. It can do damage to your floors and furnishings as well as your plants.

Source: doityourself.com forum

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Twisty LED Lights

The future of LED indoor plant lighting for both display and plant growth is looking brighter every day.

Source: Inhabitat
Glide

Cool Cans

These cool looking watering cans with a swivel spout come in 3 sizes…Mini (1.06 qt/1L), Indoor (3.17 qt/3L) and Outdoor (2.11 gal/8L).

I'm going to buy an Indoor model and check it out. Watering cans are much like kitchen knives. You need to experience how they feel in your hand.

Update: May 26, 2007 - Watering can received and used. Looks cool, feels cool, pours cool. Good product!

Source: OXO watering cans

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Mozilla Firefox Blog Coming

The Firefox browser with Google toolbar is the engine that drives this blog. It’s the first thing to crank up when I start my computer.

Just read that a Mozilla Firefox blog is on the way. Good idea! I’ll be reading it for sure.

Far Out Saucers

You don’t need to read many posts here to know my opinion about planters with drain holes and saucers. Like everything in life, there’s always an exception.

Check out the saucer on the Senior planter. Okay, maybe the Kentia palm helped persuade me. No Majesty Palms going in these planters.

If the Senior planter was in my budget, you can be sure that I'd install a watertight sub-irrigation planter inside. Sorry but drench and drain watering is not one of my exceptions.

So maybe they're a bit pricey, but who knows what they might fetch on Antiques Roadshow in 2107.

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Indoor Plant Lighting of the Future

This is an excerpt from a post about LED lighting from the archives of WorldChanging.com.

Solid-state lighting is indeed a big deal, however, for multiple reasons. One reason is not always appreciated-- the color gamut. LEDs offer far more colors than the usual fluorescent or incandescent emission spectra (and phosphor response spectra). LED light can be made to resemble natural sunlight. The impact on health for people who often work inside could be noticeable, and it could help indoor plants too.

LEDs are now at work in the Greenscaper Consumer Lab, not for growth lighting but for ambiance. On a recent trip to Costco, I spotted a set of 3 wireless LED puck lights for $14 (AAA batteries included). They do a nice job of providing mood lighting (either up lighting, or overhead light).

Being wireless, they are very convenient. The circle in the middle is the on-off switch (just press). Note the tilt of the puck light on the right (middle). The light heads swivel and pivot. Very cool!

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24 Hours of Flickr

I happened to surf into the Blurberati Blog and discovered that this past Saturday, May 5, 2007 was designated 24 Hours of Flickr.

This is event is a good example to illustrate my point that Flickr is unique and not comparable to Photobucket and the other photo storage sites. Flickr is a dynamic community of creative people as this event so clearly demonstrates. Have a look!

There are currently over 23,000 members in the 24 Hours of Flickr group with over 4,000 photos posted. Incidentally, there are just 46 photos from a group search on the word "plant".

I'm sure there will be more.

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Flickr in the News

Flickr.com won several Webby Awards (equivalent to Oscars in film) including Best Practices. Most view this award as the top award since it focuses on excellence in design, content, and technology. Flickr also won Webbys for Best Visual Design – Function and the Community award. That’s quite an achievement and in my opinion well deserved.

At the same time, Yahoo (owner of Flickr) discontinued its Yahoo Photos site. Customers will be encouraged to move their photos to Flickr with Yahoo’s help.

Flickr is also in the news with the publication of photo site rankings. Photobucket, not Flickr, is the clear winner in this category with about 40% of all online photo sharing traffic. Much of this traffic comes from MySpace where it is the preferred photo site.

Comparing Photobucket and Flickr in the same category is probably an apples to oranges comparison. They serve rather different clientele with different objectives. Photobucket is more like a traditional photo album in digital form.

Flickr is a community of people who to a larger extent enjoy the art and display of photography. There are plenty of mundane, low quality photos on Flickr but you’ll also find that it is community of creative and talented photographers both professional and amateur. The quality of photography is much higher on Flickr than on the other photo sites.

Incidentally, many gardeners store their houseplant photos on Photobucket. I’ve searched these photos several times. It is in my opinion a mélange of mediocrity. Most of the plants are still in their plastic grow pots or terracotta pots (with saucers of course). The poor level of quality is a testimony to the practice of drench and drain watering coupled with insufficient light.

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Take a Meditation Break

Found this thanks to popgadget. You might say why? Then again, you might say why not? Sure looks better to my eyes than staring at a fake Ficus tree.

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How the Internet took over

USA Today reports. See Google at No. 6

Twenty-five years ago the Internet as we now know it was in the process of being birthed by the National Science Foundation. Since then it's been an information explosion. From e-mail to eBay, communication and shopping have forever changed.

6 Google

So popular it’s a verb. The search powerhouse, with a market capitalization of nearly $149 billion, perfected how we find info on the Web. Google sites had nearly 500 million visitors in December.

The World's Most Powerful Brand

Google is reported at the top of the new BrandZ rankings.

Google the MRI

The past years of blogging research have given me a much clearer picture of the entire subject of “inside plants” or the use of plants in buildings in the U.S. and other parts of the world.

In the process, I’ve come to realize that Google is far more than a search engine or provider of answers to specific questions. With daily focused activity, it has become analogous to an MRI of the human body. It not only shows the bones of the business but it also reveals the vital organs, including the brain and heart.

Google News Alerts, web searches, site searches and blog searches are part of my daily life. In the process of using these tools, Google has been the vehicle for revealing significant information about the players in this market much of it in unflattering detail.

The players include among others houseplant gardeners, USDA extension program agents, so-called Master Gardeners, greenhouse growers and interior landscapers. Thanks to the Internet and Google, I know much more about them than I ever did before in my 30 years of experience in the field.

The overriding message coming through is that in one way or another these players have a strangle hold on the growth of plants in buildings. Only with more forward-looking practices and the entry of new players, will there be growth in the use of plants in buildings.

Stay tuned. There’s a lot more to come, thanks in large part to Google.

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