Recycled UTZ Pretzel Container

Click to enlarge. This is an an UTZ pretzel container that was recycled to make this sub-irrigation planter. It was made using the same technique as the soda bottle planters .

The plant is a Schefflera arboricola that has been growing in one of my other sub-irrigation planters. It is now over 8 years old and in extremely good health.

There is one change that improves these planters. If you insert a strip of polyester backing material (1" wide in this planter) (AquaPad ) under the cap you will create a very functional wick. Just lay the wicking strip inside the cap and screw it on. This fastens it and creates a wick for capillary action from the reservoir into the potting soil.

Using this method the cap or lid in this case does not need to contact the bottom of the reservoir. The polyester wick bridges the gap between the cap and the reservoir bottom.

This planter is equivalent to an 8" grower pot. It cost nothing and is in my opinion better than the majority of so-called self-watering planters sold at retail.

You can see everything that’s going on…reservoir, soil moisture and the root system. You can either use it free standing with a high-tech look or install it in a decorative cachepot.

NOTE
Sorry that comments don’t work. There's a software bug that I don't know how to fix. Please email your comments, questions and suggestions until I can get comments working again. Thanks!
e-mail Bob Hyland
bobhyland[AT]insideplantslive [dot]org

A Message From Greenscaper If you’re top watering your houseplants, there’s a better way...for both you and your plants.

Follow the advice you read here and that of Dr. Bill Wolverton, retired NASA scientist and author of the most popular houseplant book "How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 Houseplants that Purify Your Home or Office".

He correctly recommends hydroculture first and subirrigation second. He rates drench and drain top watering as a poor third choice.

There is no advice here about sub-irrigation or hydroculture that you cannot prove to yourself. It doesn’t take a sophisticated plant lab. Just do it! You and your plants will find the benefits in short order.

Click for more ABOUT this public service weblog updated weekly when time permits.

Welcome if you're a newcomer and welcome back if you've been here before. Keep on coming back!

Tell a friend and remember to be a green greenscaper!

ALSO VISIT GreenScaper.net, a companion blog.

A Founding Father of the Web Speaks About Progress

Vint Cerf is considered one of the "founding fathers of the Internet. He is also Vice President & Chief Internet Evangelist of Google. In this video, he justifiably evangelizes about the Growing Connection and the EarthBox sub-irrigation planter.

As said before, Google reveals all. I discovered a Google Custom Search of all the 50+ Cooperative Extension program websites across the country. These 10 mentions of the word 'earthbox are the sum total results of a search using this engine. The search provides little or no educational information.

Why is that we as a nation seem to have a department of agriculture extension program living under a rock. It is no wonder that horticulturists wonder about their future. (It's a pdf. Scroll down to page 8 ) MS Word file. Download file

Also read on the subject here .

I'll post the results of many more searches of these sites that relate to the maintenance of plants in and around buildings. They reveal how out of touch this program is with the realities of 21st century life and the issues of sustainability, water conservation and the environment.

In the meantime, run your own searches using this feature. A forewarning, you’re not likely to find much about modernity.

NOTE
Sorry that comments don’t work. There's a software bug that I don't know how to fix. Please email your comments, questions and suggestions until I can get comments working again. Thanks!
e-mail Bob Hyland
bobhyland[AT]insideplantslive [dot]org

Self-Watering Evaporation Planter

Speaking of capillary action and science education. It's bad enough that sub-irrigation planters using capillary action are called 'self-watering.' Now we have capillary action referred to as evaporation.

You might get some humidity in the air through evaporation, but it's not going to water the plant.

How does it work?

At the bottom of the planter, there is a 1-gallon reservoir. Through evaporation, the water in the reservoir moisten(s) the soil above it. The reservoir is refill(ed) through a filling tube.

Via: GadgetGrid
Source: Gardener’s Supply

NOTE
Sorry that comments don’t work. There's a software bug that I don't know how to fix. Please email your comments, questions and suggestions until I can get comments working again. Thanks!
e-mail Bob Hyland
bobhyland[AT]insideplantslive [dot]org

Top 5 Myths About Girls, Math and Science

This article is based on information from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE) program. It helps explain why I am donating the Greenscaper Inside Plants Science Lab. The plan is for it to go to ten different public and private educational institutions to help teach science to young girls and boys.

I'm by no means a science head, but more of a do-it-yourselfer. Even I understand capillary action. The houseplant community, which is dominated by women, seems to have little or no understanding of this basic principal of physics.

Use of the term self-watering, clay pots with saucers along with finger poking to measure soil moisture are significant indicators of a lack of science education in the houseplant and container gardening community.

Evidently, the problem starts along about the 8th grade when girls drop out of science. Sadly, the older women in the houseplant community are testimony to this educational failure. Unfortunately they are the authors of most of the books about houseplants.

Myth 1: From the time they start school, most girls are less interested in science than boys are.

Reality: In elementary school about as many girls as boys have positive attitudes toward science. A recent study of fourth graders showed that 66 percent of girls and 68 percent of boys reported liking science. But something else starts happening in elementary school. By second grade, when students (both boys and girls) are asked to draw a scientist, most portray a white male in a lab coat. Any woman scientist they draw looks severe and not very happy.

The persistence of the stereotypes start to turn girls off, and by eighth grade, boys are twice as interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) careers as girls are. The female attrition continues throughout high school, college and even the work force. Women with STEM higher education degrees are twice as likely to leave a scientific or engineering job as men with comparable STEM degrees.

NOTE
Sorry that comments don’t work. There's a software bug that I don't know how to fix. Please email your comments, questions and suggestions until I can get comments working again. Thanks!
e-mail Bob Hyland
bobhyland[AT]insideplantslive [dot]org

Malicious Defacement

Update 2: The porn photo defacements have been removed. My photos look normal again even to me as the account owner.
Update: I had a friend check my Flickr account and evidently what I see is not viewable to the public at large. I'm grateful for that but it does not change the opinions expressed here.

There has been a series of malicious defacements of both this blog and my Flickr photos. It’s best not to access my Flickr account currently.

Because of some past personal experiences, I am highly suspicious that these attacks are from someone in the horticultural community rather than some stray nutcase.

I have no personal enemies that I know of but I do know that I am considered "the enemy" by some for publishing this blog. I've been called the enemy right to my face.

If you think that houseplants are a non-controversial, innocuous subject, think again. I've personally experienced an anti-technology, anti-science, reactionary element in the horticulture community whose positions on the subject could easily be described as zealotry.

Short of zealotry, overly sanctimonious opinions, particularly on gardening blogs are an every-day occurrence in my research. Placed in the perspective of our current polarized national politics and world events, I wonder where we are headed as a nation.

I have a lot more to say but I’m in the middle of watering plants in the lab. This job will end before too long as I am in the process of donating what I now call the Greenscaper Inside Plants Science Lab.

Note the word science, for that is the operative word. I will donate this extensive database of information along with the plants to help teach science to kids, particularly young girls.

If you know of anyone connected to a NY Metro area educational institution or non-profit that is working to further the science and environmental education of young people, please contact me. The Big Apple is where the lab and I are headed by the end of this month. No Sleep Til Brooklyn

My vision is to see this work expanded 10 fold and then 100 fold…or more.

What’s your opinion?

NOTE
Sorry that comments don’t work. There's a software bug that I don't know how to fix. Please email your comments, questions and suggestions until I can get comments working again. Thanks!
e-mail Bob Hyland
bobhyland[AT]insideplantslive [dot]org