Majesty Palm Question

This is a question from a column on the SFGate.com (San Franciso Chronicle) website. The answer is a particularly thorough discussion of Majesty Palms (Ravenea rivularis). If you are thinking of buying one or already have one, it's well worth reading.

Q: We recently moved into a new house by the old naval air station in Alameda. It is pretty windy. We took a palm (labeled 'majesty') that had been intended as a houseplant and planted it in a sunny spot -- our teenager thinks it would be fun to watch it grow, and so do we. But it's been in the ground about a month, and the leaves looked sunburned after two days and the new leaves it put out since look sunburned at the ends. Should I give up on it and try one sold as an outdoor plant?

Read the answer.

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Kitchen Herb Garden

I can’t tell for sure but the “self-watering” (sub-irrigation) planters in the photo look like Eva Solo planters. They have a nice look, but it isn’t necessary to pay so much for sub-irrigation herb planters. Use recycled plastic bottle planters. They cost nothing and will work as well or better. You could put them inside decorative containers if you like.

You may not have this much room for growing herbs in your kitchen so work with what you have. You can tuck an array of plastic bottle planters in small spaces as long as there’s enough light. Or, experiment with a CFL desk lamp as primary or supplemental light.

Via: LivingEtc

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Dumb as a Houseplant

This is a cartoon houseplant available from illustrator Brad Fitzpatrick. Note that he drew it in a terracotta pot a cliché of the houseplant world. How appropriate.

Many outdoor gardeners think these are better for indoor plants because they ‘breathe’. That’s just urban legend stuff triggered by the tricky nature of drench and drain watering. Their objective typically is to avoid over watering and prevent fungus gnat infestations.

Terracotta pots and overly fast draining soil mixes just treat the symptoms instead of the cause which is the top watering method. All they do is create more of a need to be a plant nanny, poking and pouring ever more frequently.

There’s a phrase “dumb as a houseplant” that I see frequently on the web. I wonder what the plants are saying.

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Water Torture

I have an idea to jet propel the use of plants in buildings. Let’s charter some jumbo jets and fly all of our soluble salts fear mongering Extension Program horticulturists and gardening writers to Jerusalem.

Those who refuse to go will suffer the extreme torture of continuous drench and drain water over their heads. Of course, someone will periodically stick a finger in their ear.

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Ah, My Own Kind

I just knew they’d get along together. Somehow, I knew it . Not only are they living in modern accommodations but also they’re related.

Read more from National Geographic.

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Time for a Trim

Click to enlarge.

This is how this Dracaena marginata looked 10 months ago in August 2006. It was then a recently purchased 6” pot size plant. It’s been sub-irrigated since then by a method some refer to as semi-hydroculture. The plant has been growing in potting soil in a clear plastic basket liner with expanded clay pebbles under it. It's the same method used for this Rhapis palm.

The plant is weighed on a bi-weekly schedule and a measured amount of water added based on its current weight compared to the last weighing. The difference (ounces consumed) is replenished.

Using this method, it is near to impossible to over or under water the plant. It receives exactly the necessary amount of water based on its water consumption related to the light level. It has been using approximately 1.7 oz per day on average.

You can see that the plant has benefited from this light/water regimen. The growth has been impressive. It is now 2-3 times it's original height. However, it has now grown to a point where it needs pruning.

I will probably cut back each one of the 3 canes. The pruned tips can be easily rooted. Once rooted, they can be potted up to create a plant much like the original 6” plant. The 'parent' plant after pruning will develop into the more classic Dracaena marginata cane form.

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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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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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Fungus Gnats

Fungus gnats are less than 1/8" in size but they cause more complaints from people than any other plant pest. That's because they're mobile and can encroach on human space. They're particularly annoying in food serving areas.

This current Q & A is just one example of the frequent articles I read about fungus gnats. The same stale advice is repeated over and over again.

Extension agents and gardening writers never mention sub-irrigation as a solution. You should know that if you use sub-irrigation as described on this blog, it is highly unlikely that you will ever see a fungus gnat. The reason is that the soil surface layer is always dry. There is no habitat for the propagation of fungus gnat larvae. It is that simple.

Fungus gnats in homes are nearly always associated with houseplants, particularly overwatered ones; they feed primarily on decaying or damaged roots. They are also commonly found in houseplants potted in soil that's high in organic matter such as peat. Fungus gnats rarely feed on healthy roots. They do not typically injure houseplants but are known to transfer some plant diseases.

To control fungus gnats, reduce the soil moisture, letting the surface dry between waterings. You can tell when your plant needs moisture by picking it up and feeling how heavy it is. With a little practice you can get a sense of when to water. Also, watch the color of the leaves. When most plants are ready to be watered, the foliage will be a bit dull and less lively. Don't let plants get so dry that they wilt.

This Google search on fungus gnats and indoor plants produced over 20,000 hits.

I searched on Google for Gardeners. The first search produced more than 120 hits.

The second search included the word subirrigation.

This time there were only about 36 hits, several of them links to this blog. Obviously, there is little understanding about subirrigation and its many benefits within the gardening community.

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Memory Tree

Click to enlarge. I know from personal experience that nothing can replace a lost child. The pain of loss is eternal. This tree is meant to be symbolic of life rather than death. It may be a “Weeping Fig” but it grows and robustly lives on.

The tree symbolizes life and nurturing. Using simple technology and the scientific method it will live a lifetime and beyond. Follow simple steps and I guarantee it will. There is no need for a mythical green thumb, a drain hole, or a saucer. A child can care for it.

This is an embryonic idea to contribute something meaningful to the loved ones of those who perished in the senseless slaughter on the campus of Virginia Tech.

I would like to open it to the collective consciousness, the universe, and yes to an even higher level…the blogosphere. I exaggerate of course...but not by much.

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Plant Care Observations

I'm watering plants in the lab in between watching the NCAA basketball tournament. I've been a basketball nut all my life.

Here are a couple of observations.

Pest Management

All of the windows available for plants in my house (home of the Greenscaper Consumer Lab) are essentially west facing. This is not particularly good. West facing windows are notorious for creating heat traps, particularly when the windows are closed during the winter. This environment of light, heat, and insufficient air movement creates a perfect environment for the propagation of pests such as spider mites and mealy bugs.

It's been a constant battle and I haven't always been diligent with my pest scouting. That's a big mistake. Shame on me! It's essential to eradicate them before they create a real problem. So...a word to the wise.

Daylight Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

A rather dark hallway is a central location in my house and I often position my plant care cart under the light in this hall. I recently changed the bulb to a 27-watt (100-watt equivalent) daylight CF bulb. When I first put it in the change from the warm light of the incandescent to CF daylight was noticeable.

Today I realized that the new CF bulb gives the feeling of standing under a skylight. I did a double take and looked up to realize how pleasant it was. It's for me, much more natural than the yellowish incandescent light.

Hydrotip.de

Clearly the best website I’ve found so far on the subject of hydroculture is the German website Hydrotip.de. I have only scratched the surface of the knowledge base on this site. I am in awe and humbled by what I read. It’s that good. Incidentally, you will also find interior horticulture information beyond the subject of hydroculture.

Like Inside Plants Live, it is a non-profit website and free to publish critical comments and reviews. Note that neither site even carries Google ads.

Couple Hydrotip.de with Plants-in-Buildings.com and some hands-on experimentation and you can teach yourself to be a very well informed practitioner of interior plant installation and care. In my opinion, you’ll learn more about modern methods on these sites than you will by attending any ornamental horticulture (or floriculture) program here in the U.S. I’m quite familiar with what they teach. Sadly, most of it is long out of date.

Unfortunately, Hydrotip.de is in German with no English version as an option. With that said it is well worth your time to explore this site using Babel Fish as outlined here. Use either Babel Fish or a German-English dictionary to help clarify some of the quite rough translation. Let’s hope that Google is allocating a lot of their resources to language translation.

After you have translated from German to English in Babel Fish, click on “The bases” (i.e. the basics). There are 63 data records (11 pages). All of them are worth reading but I suggest starting on page 4 and then click on “I would like to begin with the hydraulic culture. What do I need?” Be sure to read about “changing over “(soil to clay pebbles).

You can also click on “Sitemap” and find the same information and much more.

If you’re keenly interested in the subject of hydroculture as applied to plants in buildings, you will spend a lot of time on Hydrotip.de. Bon voyage…but do come back. Please tell a friend, or two or more what you have found here. It’s my only compensation and much appreciated. Thanks!

When All Else Fails

When all else fails...try this.

Peace Lilies and Remembrance

Click to enlarge. It’s an appropriate day to talk some more about Peace Lilies. Spathiphyllum are one of the most popular indoor plants. Because they are often received as memorial plants, people naturally have a strong emotional attachment to them and don't want to see them die.

The Peace Lilies in the foreground were purchased as 4” plants growing in soil. I converted them (hydroconverted) from soil mix to clay pebble sub-irrigation (aka hydroculture) while they were in full bloom about a month ago (August 7). The plants have shown absolutely no sign of shock from having the potting soil carefully washed from their roots.

The one on the right front has already put out a couple of new flowers. You can see one of them in the center of the photo coming off at an angle.

Even though I’ve found Peace Lilies to be perhaps, the easiest plants to hydroconvert I would recommend practicing as I did on one or two 4” plants.

Incidentally, I purchased the plant in the middle as a 6” plant. When I hydroconverted it I discovered that it was a recently potted up 4” plant sold as a 6” plant. There were no roots in the new soil surrounding the 4” pot size plant. It’s interesting what you find when you unpot indoor plants immediately after purchase.

I regularly read pleas for help from “black thumb” (non-gardener) Peace Lily gift recipients who don’t know anything about indoor plants. This information is for them.

• Be sure to use sub-irrigation, either soil or expanded clay pebble media. Personally, I would convert all the plants in the Greenscaper Consumer Lab to hydroculture. I do not because I want to continue testing soil based plants since they are the only choice in the U.S. “houseplant” market.

• About flowering, the white (or green) “leaf” is botanically termed a spathe. The white “corncob” is the flower.

• Plants with flowers need significantly more light (to flower) than plants grown just for their decorative foliage. Flower production requires much more energy than foliage production. The energy comes from light.

• Even with adequate light and precision sub-irrigation, your gift plant will not likely bloom again in such abundance. Greenhouse growers use chemicals such as gibberellic acid to induce flowering. This is not feasible for indoor plant maintenance in your home or office.

Wet Soil - Allergies and Mold

This is an article about indoor allergens. Those who think their top-watered “house plants” are virtuous should think again. Their green plants may not be as environmentally green as they think.

Contrary to popular belief, Fawcett said, bringing flowering plants inside will not aggravate allergy symptoms. However, she said, indoor trees could.

"I think the biggest issue in indoor plants is the amt of soil you pot those plants in because then you tend to over-water, and they grow mold spores," she said.

If you think this is a quack opinion read the rest of the 646,000 Google search hits on the subject.

Drench and drain watering of indoor plants is simply a bad idea. It's for outdoor gardening and not good for your indoor environment.

Remember that the soil surface is always dry when you provide water to your plants by measured sub-irrigation. If there's no moist soil, there's no environment for the propagation of mold. There's also no environment for the propagation of annoying fungus gnats.

Root Pruning

Click to enlarge. This photo may have given some readers the shudders. Many "houseplant" caretakers in particular are reluctant to prune their plants. They often anthropomorphize them, meaning they attribute human qualities to plants.

Scientifically this is nonsense but often a maternal nurturing instinct gets in the way of logic. I regularly read references to plants as babies on Internet houseplant forums and revulsion to pruning them.

This is a good article about the merits of pruning indoor container plants. It’s one of the best things you can do for your indoor plants. The author is a well-known garden writer. I don't often find accurate articles about plants in buildings written by outdoor gardeners, but this is one them.

Following is a particularly cogent excerpt from the article. Truth be known most of the so-called houseplant caretakers on web forums are outdoor gardeners who are only over-wintering their plants inside the house. Their gardening motivation is to grow plants as in “how big can I grow this plant.”

Maintenance of a decorative object would be a good goal for year round indoor plant owners. That’s what Reich says here.

Once the plant is back in its pot, the stems also will need some pruning to keep the top of the plant shapely and in proportion to the size of the container. The goal here is beauty, not growth. After all, you're not seeking maximum growth from a houseplant that already is full size -- full-size for your house, that is.

Easy Care Flowerless Indoor Plants

Click to enlarge. These indoor plants may not flower, but most anyone using modern digital age methods can keep them alive and healthy looking.

It’s no secret that women like flowering “houseplants.” That’s fine, but their degree of difficulty is in the range of 8-10 on a scale of 10. Plants need much more light to flower than they do to maintain foliage. Other than African Violets there are very view easy-to-care -for flowering indoor plants.

Note that the majority of the so-called “houseplants” in the What is a Houseplant? post are flowering plants. In my opinion, this is a disingenuous pitch to female buyers. Very few indoor plant maintainers will have the skill and necessary interior environment to keep any of these plants alive, no less flowering.

Even commercial plant maintainers refer to flowering plants as “color rotation.” All those flowering bromeliads, chrysanthemums, kalanchoes and poinsettias you see in hotel lobbies and malls are replaced every two to three weeks.

My best advice is to spend your money on cut flowers. In the end, you’ll save money and remove the frustration of killing “houseplants” that don’t stand a chance of staying alive for other than a limited time.

What is a Houseplant?

The botanical answer often given to this question is that there is no such thing as a “houseplant.” Well of course there is for those of us who like some contact with the natural world inside our homes. However, what are the specifications or parameters that define just what a “houseplant” is?

The question came to mind recently when someone posted a request for online houseplant sources on a popular houseplant forum.

Someone replied with this link. There are about 120 “houseplants” included here in this section of the online catalog. As an interior plantscaping professional, I would say there are only about a half dozen of them that are widely recognized as good indoor plants.

Unfortunately, there are self-styled green thumbs camped out on these forums who recommend all kinds of plants that are unsuitable for building interiors. What they fail to reveal is that their plants live a good part of the time outdoors over the summer. They also neglect to disclose how many of them they kill.

The overwhelming majority of these plants are high light requirement plants suitable for outdoor gardening only. I’m not just picking on one supplier. There are sellers all over the web who market plants that are inappropriate for indoor growing. There’s no law against it…although maybe there should be.

Perhaps the best site on the web that defines plants suitable for use inside buildings is Plants-in-Buildings.com. I’ve recommended it before. In my opinion, it is clearly the best website on the subject. It has excellent, well-written content and it's worth spending significant time surfing through the site. Check out the Specifier's Guide - Plant Selector.

It took a while to do, but I searched for all of the so-called “houseplants” and found only eight out of over 120 listed. The Tibouchina urvilleana in the photo above was not one of them. Again,…caveat emptor!

In or Out of the Money?

Click to enlarge. Is your Money Tree (Pachira aquatica) going to be a good luck charm and bring you money or is it going to die and be a waste of money?

The other not-so-good possibility is that it may look like this after a while.

These plants are a companion to the over-hyped Lucky Bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) plants from Asia flooding the “houseplant” market. I finally succumbed and bought a couple of small (4” pot-size) plants.

As you can see the plant on the left is growing in a 9-ounce clear plastic party cup (3 ½” diameter x 3” tall). Can you believe how small a container in proportion to the plant size? It is sub-irrigated using the sleeved cup method. I’ve been adding only 5 ounces of water once a week. That's about 7 tenths of an ounce per day and even I am amazed.

Note that it is called “aquatica” which I’m sure has led many buyers to over water them with disastrous results.

Having no prior experience this will be yet another learning opportunity to see if I can keep it looking healthy and in proportion. You can see a couple of stem clippings in the photo. I don’t plan to try to continue the braiding. I’ll attempt to prune it as I do desktop Ficus benjamina and Dwarf Schefflera plants.

I’ve done some web searching on “Pachira aquatica care” with some interesting results. The plant care advice is all over the lot. As is so common, people give advice about “houseplants” with nothing but limited anecdotal experience. Once again, caveat emptor.

It won't happen to these plants but take a look at this Pachira tree in bloom on Flickr.

This is an excerpt from one of the first hits on a Google search.

But instead of let (sic) them grow very tall. We found that its trunk (sic) are flexible enough to be braided together using special technique (sic). Using five young Pachira manually braided together. Put them in the pot and watering (sic) them appropriately. After approx 10 months you get what you see in the picture below. An exotic pot plant.

Here’s the “picture below.” Note that it’s a picture of the trunk and not the plant. I found that to be a rather significant evasion of reality. Of course, there’s never any misrepresentation of “houseplants” on the web. Giggle, giggle...and double caveat emptor!

Ficus Acclimatization

Click to enlarge. These leaves may look as if they are from two different plant species but they’re not. Both are Ficus Benjamina (Weeping Fig) leaves. The difference in how they look is caused by the amount of light they receive.

The leaves on the left are from a Ficus tree growing in full sun (approximately 10,000 foot-candles). The sun-grown leaves are smaller, lighter green, and angled (cupped) at the midrib (rachis). The leaves on the right are from a Ficus tree that was acclimated for low light interior use (less than 2,000 foot-candles).

The shade-grown leaves are larger, darker green, and flatter. Thus, these shade-grown leaves have a much better ability to gather light by presenting a significantly larger surface to catch the light.

If the Ficus tree has sun-grown leaves, it will drop all of them when moved into a low-light interior environment. My opinion is that it is much better to keep your shade-grown Ficus indoors the year round to preserve all the benefits of these low-light acclimated leaves.

I believe the widespread reputation of Weeping Figs being extraordinarily temperamental stems from misguided caretakers moving them around from low to high light and vice versa.

This is jarring to the physiology of the plant. My objective is to maintain the tree rather than see how big I can grow it. Growing a bigger plant is a typical outdoor gardener objective and may not be consistent with good interior plant maintenance practices.

If you would like to know more about the science behind this, go here, here and here.

Following is an excerpt.

LCP is the Light Compensation Point which is good to know about. Far too many "houseplants" are placed in locations below their LCP. The result is d-e-a-t-h, often erroneously blamed on over watering rather than too little light.

Leaf Structure

Many researchers have examined LCPs of shade and sun grown plants and concluded shade grown plants had lower LCPs than sun grown plants. New changes in leaf structure in response to production light levels were examined to help explain the shift in LCP. Peterson et al. (30) found that trees grown under high light intensities had smaller thicker leaves with two distinct palisade layers, while shade grown leaves had only one palisade layer. Fails, Lewis and Barden (18, 19, 20) studied the anatomy and morphology of sun and shade grown foliage and confirmed these findings. They also reported greater stomatal density in sun grown leaves, although shade grown leaves had more stomata per leaf. Sun grown leaves were small and thick with 2 layers of elongated palisade mesophyll cells and chloroplasts were aligned along the radial cell walls. Shade grown leaves were larger, thinner and darker green with a single layer of short palisade cells. Chloroplasts were dispersed throughout the palisade cells and appeared to be larger than in sun grown plants. When net photosynthesis of plants grown in full sun and 50% sun was compared under various photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), shade grown leaves had a photosynthetic advantage over sun grown leaves at PAR comparable to lighting found in interiors. Sun grown leaves also transpired more at all PAR levels tested.

San Diego Water Quality Ranking

We may have near perfect weather that pampers people here in San Diego but the water is not so hot. SustainLane.com ranks San Diego way down the list at No. 44 in Tap Water Quality.

This tap water is what the plants in the Greenscaper lab drink and by the way, what I drink. It looks like I should have installed a water filter a long time ago.

So, if you think I pamper these sub-irrigated plants with “special water” guess again. They are in excellent health in spite of the local tap water. Also, know that Colorado River water is relatively high in soluble salts.

Whatever the water quality, the most important factor is the way you water. Subirrigation is precise.

Top watering, drench and drain, flood and drain, poke pour and pray, whatever you call it is not precise. Inadequate light coupled with this foolish way to water plants in buildings is the leading cause of sickly looking plants and dead plants.

This is what SustainLane has to say about San Diego Water.

San Diego gets its water from the Colorado River, 1,500 miles away, and from Northern California, 600 miles away. An enormous amount of non-renewable energy is used to get this water to the tap. And partially because of the water’s epic journey past freeways and industry through open-air canals, San Diego tap water (#44) has 27 contaminants, with 5 over the recommended threshold. If you’re living here, be sure to use a water filter.

Easy as Eating a Banana

Click to enlarge.This Schefflera arboricola (Hawaiian Dwarf Schefflera) is living happily in a microwave food cover inside a melamine bowl from Party City. There's a polyester AquaPad under it to facilitate capillary action. It happens to be growing in expanded clay pebble media but it could just as well be potting soil in the same set up.

I didn't fill the edge around the microwave cover with clay pebbles so you could see it. Note the pipette tube for checking the water level. Just insert a piece of 1/4" plastic tubing, hold your finger over the end, lift it out and you'll see the water level.

Don't be a banana. Leave the clay pots, saucers, water drainage, and all that mess outdoors. It's not a good thing. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

It's That Time of the Year Again

It seems so logical, but isn’t. One of the worst bits of advice from the many USDA Cooperative Extension Program websites is to give your “houseplants” an outdoors summer vacation. This is inappropriate outdoor gardening advice applied to plants in buildings. Professional plant maintainers would not even think about moving high quality carefully acclimated interior plants outdoors.

People who are serious about maintaining quality, pest free plants in their homes do not ever put them outside. The risk of permanent damage from too much light, plant pests and animals is simply too great.

The term “houseplants” is imprecise and I avoid using it. Many who grow “houseplants” are in reality outdoor gardeners impatient to see their plants grow. It’s more accurate to call their plants “backyard plants” or “patio plants” that are over wintered in the house.

The primary goal of plants in buildings maintainers is to maintain healthy plants for their aesthetic value regardless whether they grow significantly larger. Emphasis is on the word maintain.

Before you move your plants outside read these current threads on the GardenWeb Houseplant forum...here, here and here.

Less Work for Mother

Click to enlarge.Mothers have been growing African Violets on kitchen windowsills for generations. This one won’t fit on most windowsills but it’s a lot showier and needs less fussing over than those little pots. Your mom can keep this alive even if she doesn’t have a so-called “green thumb.” Mine didn’t and she would have appreciated this plant.

This AV bowl was made up from three 4” pot size African Violets almost three years ago. They’re growing in subirrigated Supersoil in a recycled clear plastic cookie container inside the plastic bowl planter. No, it isn’t special African Violet soil. There's an AquaPad underneath and special soil isn't necessary.

It gets about 2 pints (32 oz) of water every two weeks and has some flowers the year round. Snip the spent flowers and pull a dead leaf once and awhile and that’s it.

If your mom likes flowers, this is definitely a less work for mother plant. Is there anyone besides me old enough to remember who created the slogan “less work for mother?” It was Horn & Hardart.

Horn & Hardart Automats played a special role in my life when I was a young boy. Trips into "the city" from Long Island were always fun and a meal at an Automat was a big treat. It seems like only yesterday standing on the cashier line to get nickels to use in the coin slots by the little food windows.

Yup, I can see that lemon meringue pie right now. One time I was getting my lemon meringue pie from the little window when all of sudden the doors closed and swiped the meringue off the top of my pie. What a shock that was. The servers behind the wall got a big laugh and I got a free pie for my trouble.

Double Duty Dinnerware

Click to enlarge.This Fusion Wasabi 12” serving bowl caught my eye at Bed, Bath & Beyond. To my eye, it has a nice oriental motif and coordinates well with the palm.

The palm is a 6” pot size Chamaedorea elegans (common name Neanthebella or Parlor Palm). The easiest method of installing it in the rather shallow bowl was to use clay pebble subirrigation (hydroculture) with a top dressing of polished black stones.

It’s been living in the serving bowl next to a vertical fluorescent light since February 5, 2006. So far, so good. It appears to be doing just fine as it consumes about one ounce of water per day.

With hydroculture there's no need for noodling around with your finger trying to figure out if the palm needs water. Okay...bad pun, but preparing those noodles in your microwave is a lot easier than doing the "poke, pour and pray" thing with top watered plants in a soil mix.

Seeing More Clearly

Click to enlarge.Clay pebble subirrigation (aka hydroculture) offers a new way to observe how plants use water and light. You can easily watch the level go down in these clear glass containers as the plants use water.

If the light is insufficient, you’ll know because the water level will not perceptibly recede. Add more light and it will observably go down. You will be watching what horticulturists refer to as the light-water relationship of plants, indoor plants in this case.

Many sources cite over watering as the leading cause of “houseplant” death when, in fact, the cause is insufficient light. Plants must have adequate light for photosynthesis to take place. Insufficient light is the most common indoor plant problem I have observed over the past three decades.

These same sources offer no scientific method to measure light (such as a foot-candle or lux meter). The common recommendations are based on imprecise window direction.

With clay pebble hydroculture (and measured soil subirrigation), you are alerted to insufficient light before permanent damage is done to the plants. Waiting for the plant to develop physiological symptoms is foolish.

Symptoms such as reduction in stem caliper, reduction in leaf size, and increase in the space between leaves are most often irreversible.

After a child complains about not feeling well, would you wait for severe physical symptoms to appear before taking action such as calling your doctor?

Trash Basket Spider Plant

Click to enlarge.This is a Spider Plant (Chlorophytum) subirrigated in a trash basket. Some of the best-looking planters I’ve seen in the retail market are trash baskets. This one is from The Container Store and cost about $5.

According to those horticultural pundits obsessed with a soluble salts and drain hole fetish, this plant should be in the trash basket—but not alive. It should be either dead or disfigured with brown leaves by now. Spider plants are on their short list of 'houseplants' with a high susceptibility to soluble salts.

As you can see, it's thriving. Comparing the ongoing care of plants in buildings to greenhouse growing is like comparing Mars to Venus. I've called the Spider Plant the "Canary Plant" in the past. Here's why.

This isn’t rocket science folks. You can prove the benefits of soil or clay pebble subirrigation (aka hydroculture) to yourself in your own home. Just follow the advice you read here.

Oh,…the Sobe bottle is both a scale figure and an iconic reminder that the care of plants in buildings is more akin to ordinary kitchen skills and feeding yourself than gardening. You do not need a green thumb.

Ben the Bonsai Look-alike

Click to enlarge.If you’re not an accomplished bonsai aficionado, this probably looks like a bonsai. It may not be a well-crafted bonsai but it definitely is in a bonsai pot. This is a close up of the mica bonsai pot that houses this Ficus benjamina.

The tree photo reality is not what you think you see. The tree is not growing in the mica bonsai pot. It’s growing in a clear plastic food container concealed inside the bonsai pot. It has no drainage holes. None, nada, zip, zero…no holes!

This very ordinary 6” pot size Ficus benjamina from Home Depot was planted in the Greenscaper Consumer Lab in September 1998. It was the 21st plant added to the lab. It has been living happily in this setup along with over 400 relatives for soon to be 8 years. It receives mostly fluorescent light along with some natural light. It gets tender loving care every two weeks. No, not daily care, not every few days…every two weeks.

There’s no daily nanny-nursing going on here because Ben doesn’t need it. Ben benefits from a simple subirrigation solution. In the retail trade, it’s erroneously referred to as self-watering. If you can prep the Thai noodle soup in your microwave, you can grow this Ficus and have it for a life-long friend.

According to the USDA Cooperative Extension program academics, this tree isn’t supposed to be alive no less thriving. According to most of the houseplant books written by outdoor gardeners, it should have died long ago. According to best bonsai practice, this tree is most likely an apparition, a ghost or a Photoshop creation.

According to most of the houseplant nannies on the GardenWeb houseplant forum, this tree is living in sin without a drain hole.

Give me a break! And, give yourself a break along with your indoor plants. Be a terminator and terminate the tyranny of the drain hole. It’s simply the right thing to do for your plants and your interior living environment.

Seeing Clearly

Click to enlarge. This is the back-story about the plants in the Greenscaper Lab. Behind the scenes, most of them live in some kind of clear plastic container. In my experience, the best planters for subirrigation (and hydroculture) of indoor plants are food service plastics. Just add an AquaPad (polyester batting, aka backing material) underneath to trigger capillary action.

You’ll find containers like these in your kitchen, or perhaps from the snacks or kitchen departments of stores like Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond, The Container Store, and many other retail stores. Curiously, the last place I find good planters, either utility or decorative, is in a nursery or houseplant department.

I remove the plant from its opaque grow pot and repot into clear plastic so that I can easily inspect the most important part of the plant, the soil and root system. Opaque plastic grow pots prevent this. Does it make any sense that the most important area of the plant is hidden from your view?

It doesn’t make any sense for other than the greenhouse growers. They use opaque pots to prevent algae from growing in the greenhouse under relatively high light (2-3000 foot-candles) and high humidity. Typical interior light in a building, however, is more in the range of 25 to 200 foot-candles coupled with low humidity.

Algae is not a problem with clear containers if you install them inside a decorative cachepot. It makes plant care much easier and it looks immeasurably better than a plastic grow pot sitting in a saucer. I see photos of these rather homely plants all the time on my travels around the web.

New and recycled food containers work really well. Save and recycle all kinds of clear plastic food containers. All you have to do is drill some small holes at the bottom for capillary action to take place.

You will soon find which ones work best for you. Recycled clear plastics are good for the caretaker, good for the plants and, when recycled, good for the environment. They’re a winner all around!

There are a number of examples in the photo above. Future posts will show photos of the finished products.

1. Microwave food covers – These cost about $2 at Wal-Mart and Target. They make excellent containers for tabletop plants in shallow bowls. Use them in melamine bowls ($6-9) from stores such as Target, The Party Store and Bed, Bath & Beyond.
2. Party cups – 9oz squat, 9oz tall, 16oz, etc. These work well inside tumblers, tall narrow vases, etc. These are available everywhere at retail. Recycle them from your party.
3. Basket liners – These are available in the houseplant or garden department of nurseries and big box stores in 6”, 8”, and 10” diameters. Use them inside various food service and decorative bowls.
4. Food storage containers (Rubbermaid, Glad, etc.) – These are widely available at retail. Cut the upper rim off as you see in the photo.
5. Clear plastic cookie containers – Laguna Bakery Oat Bran with Raisins 98% fat free cookies from Costco are a favorite snack. They’re even more favored because of their 10” diameter x 3 ½” tall clear plastic food container packaging. There are many dozens of them now housing indoor plants in the lab. Trader Joe’s also has many sizes of clear food containers housing cookies and other products.

Most of these containers are made of PET (Poly Ethylene Terephthalate) plastic and although thin walled are as tough as nails. Having accidentally dropped one of these planters from a height of 5 feet with no damage to the plant or container I can attest to their toughness.

6. Plastic Colanders – Although not clear these make excellent planters in certain size bowls. Eight and 1/2" colanders are available at Target for about $2.

Ficus Not Bonsai

Click to enlarge. Nope, it's not bonsai; it's simply a little tabletop Ficus benjamina tree. It started out in my lab as a 4" pot size plant from a big box store in October 2004. It lived blissfully in unaltered (nothing added) Supersoil based subirrigation (often mistakenly called "self-watering") for the first six months of its life. Its now living just as blissfully in clay pebble subirrigation called hydroculture, a simplified method of hydroponics.

It was a typical multi-trunk tissue culture propagated plant. I tied the stems together with soft string to create a thicker trunk. They will continue to bond and look better over time. In my opinion, this is more natural looking than the widely available braided trunk plants.

That's Ficus pumila (Creeping fig) growing in amongst the polished black stones.

How does this work you ask? The tree is installed in a kitchen colander inside the black ceramic bowl, both from Target. The bowl was on clearance for $2.50, the colander $2.00, the 4" plant $2.00 for a total investment of $6.50.

I give it a pat on the head and more water every two weeks on a fixed schedule spring, summer, fall and winter. It lives on a stainless steel rack shelf in a west-facing window and uses about 2 ounces of water per day. So, every two weeks it gets about 2 cups (16oz) of water. Your "mileage" may vary depending on the light level.

No, it does not go outside for a so-called summer vacation. This is an indoor plant and it's happy to be one.

Thanks to measured subirrigation, you could be looking at this little guy a long time from now in your old age...along with your grandkids and great grandkids.

Anyone who can prep the 2-minute spicy kung pao noodle bowl can maintain this tree. Just give it ample light and a little water. A kid can do it...no green thumb required.

The Essential Pot

 
Forbes.com names "the pot" as the 16th most important tool of all time.

Curiously they make no mention of its use for holding plants. That may be because it awaited the invention of the drainage hole and saucer by the USDA Extension Program. How else would present day houseplant gardeners be able to practice drench and drain watering.

Lost my Loupe

The two best defenses against plant pests are maintaining healthy plants and diligent observation. Greenhouse growers and pest control advisors refer to pest observation as ‘scouting’. A 10-power loupe is highly recommended since common pests such as spider mites are difficult to see with the naked eye.

I lost my loupe a while back, got lazy with my scouting and paid for it. More accurately, many of my Ficus benjamina plants paid for it. They are just now growing out of a significant amount of leaf damage caused by my negligence.

The best pest management program for plants in buildings is to supply water to them by sub-irrigation or hydroculture, give them adequate light and scout for pests. Buy a loupe if you don’t have one. They're not expensive.

Here’s some good information about spider mite control.

A Happy Sansevieria in Bloom

Click to enlarge. If you haven't seen a Sansevieria in bloom, here it is. I don't think I noticed the flower at its peak and I'm by no means a professional photographer. In any case, the flower is interesting but not very significant

Click to enlarge. This plant like most of the others in my lab is sub-irrigated twice a month and lives in a clear container. It receives a measured amount of water using a half an ounce (.5 oz) of water per day (on average) over the past year since it was installed.

There is no problem with algae since the clear container is installed inside a cachepot. Clear containers coupled with "aqua-pad" sub-irrigation certainly make the plant care job much easier...and the plants obviously like it.

Click to enlarge. I've seen plants on the web installed in clear containers with a saucer reservoir instead of a cachepot. In this case, it's an Orchid maintained in expanded clay pellet hydroculture. The saucer set up makes no sense to me when a cachepot looks so much better and prevents algae propagation.

Good Looking but Pricey Shoestrings

This article reports about the Industrial Designer's Society of America (IDSA) 2005 awards. This planter won a silver medal. They’re neat looking and will work if you forget the term 'self-watering'. There will be a temptation to fill that reservoir when it's empty. Don’t! Check the soil moisture before adding water. For those who can afford them…go for it. For those who can’t, use shoestrings, or better yet ‘aquapads’.

The 2005 Industrial Design Excellence Awards offer a dizzying portrait of a consumer society on steroids.

Shoppers gorge on smarter phones, sexier music players and multifunction cameras. The new leisure class relieves stress with self-watering flowerpots and back-saving kayak racks. Caffeine hits may be taken from a personal coffeemaker in a black zippered wet suit. Decorative floating buoys light up the swimming pools prosperity has bought.

Hydroculture Update

After experiencing hydroculture for about three months, I have a question for myself. Why in the world would I want to have soil (either native ‘dirt’ or artificial soil mix) inside my living environment? It's messy and prone to harbor insect pests and mold particularly when kept too wet. It is only after comparing that I realize that maintaining plants in expanded clay pellets is far more suitable for plants in buildings.

Another revelation is the similarity to sub-irrigation. Even with about thirty years of experience with sub-irrigation it never dawned on me that hydroculture is a form of sub-irrigation.

This graphic (with permission) from the best selling houseplant book How to Grow Fresh Air, by Dr. Bill Wolverton really brought it into focus for me.


As Simple as ABC

The essential difference between sub-irrigation and hydroculture is the replacement of soil by expanded clay pellets. They are both what I term “ABC Systems”. The objective of both is to move water from below (A) up into the growing medium (B) while maintaining a dry soil surface (C).

Unlike top watering which is tricky to learn and control, these systems are as simple as ABC. A child can learn them with a minimal amount of instruction. There’s no need to kill plants through trial and error to earn a mythical “green thumb”.

Soccer Mom Snack Service

This photo is from a Forbes “Vehicle of the Week” review of the new Ford Minivan. I looked at it and realized how it epitomized the change in our society over the past decades. The soccer mom snack service photo says to me, “Who’s got time to nursemaid houseplants”.

The answer is older stay-at-home women who were brought up in a different time. They are the ones who have time to poke, pour, spritz and mist houseplants every day. They also have the time to hang out and chat on Internet houseplant forums. You can see them posting every day.

Most ultra-busy soccer moms and young professionals on the other hand have opted for replica ‘silk plants’ or no plants at all. They simply don’t have time to grow a 'green thumb' and be a houseplant nanny.

If they knew more about 21st century methods of hydroculture and sub-irrigation, they would find a far more user-friendly and less time consuming houseplant world. One that can coexist with our fast paced lifestyle that calls out for plants in buildings, a touch of the natural world to remind us all of where we live.

Bad Chi?

This just in from Bombay. Check it out. It may be bad chi you're dealing with rather than your watering.

Hydroculture Back Story

You might wonder about my rather sudden interest in hydroculture. A while back, I commented on a post by Jeff Page on the Interiorscape Magazine forum. Jeff is an up and coming interior plantscaper in Orange County, California. His company is Coast Live Tropicals

Jeff expressed an interest in hydroculture and I linked him to long time friend Gene Corey of Corey Nurseries. Many years ago, Corey Nurseries was in a failed business relationship with Jackson Perkins as U.S. distributors of the Luwasa Hydroculture system.

This contact triggered further communications. I admire Jeff's approach to the interior plantscaping business. He has an open-minded progressive attitude. Knowing my interest in watering methods, he sent me a Luwasa Hydroculture planter to try. Wrapped up in other projects, it took me a while to install a plant in it. Frankly, my interest was marginal knowing that there were no hydroculture plant suppliers in the U.S.

Then I read a post on the Garden Web Houseplant Forum. A woman, screen name Naturelover of Montreal wrote about her experience converting her houseplants to hydroculture. She linked to a photo album of her plants. I was most impressed by two things, one the quality of her plants and two that a layperson had actually converted existing soil based plants to expanded clay pellet hydroculture. Her enthusiasm was infectious. I thought if she could do it, I could and should try it out.

The rest is history. I’ve graduated to buying clay pellets in 50-liter bags and am in the process of converting a significant part of my plant lab to passive hydroculture. I’d like to thank both Jeff and Naturelover for teaching an old dog new tricks.

I now believe passive hydroculture is a viable alternative for houseplant care even if there are no U.S. plant suppliers. It seems feasible that end users can do the conversion for a wide variety of houseplants. There is likely a retail service potential here.

Houseplant Life Span?

Click to enlarge. How long do you expect a houseplant to live? This article about a bonsai show got me thinking about the question. It is common for a bonsai to be more than a century old. Although most bonsai are outdoor plants, many practice indoor bonsai.

I maintain many Ficus benjamina plants in a miniature tree style and expect them to live a very long time. That isn’t necessarily the view of the producers of these plants.

My recent visit to Plant Tour Days here in San Diego reminded me of opinions expressed to me by many growers I’ve known over the years. It is disturbing to know, as a proponent of modern plant care methods, that many producers prefer they not last too long.

One grower upon learning about this blog even referred to me as the “enemy”. I’ll not forget him. How can a product expand its presence in the marketplace when the producers secretly hope for its demise? The world economy has become far too competitive for a built-in obsolescence strategy to work.

It appears the only constituency for this blog is the end-user. Plants in buildings don’t need any more enemies than growers with a short life span attitude and extension programs teaching grossly outdated plant care methods.

The results show in the USDA figures posted today.

Bring the Outside In

Some good advice here other than this.

Wagner said that most plants tend to get over-watered, so it’s important to only water when the soil feels dry to the touch. Each plant is sold with a care tag, and there’s always the Internet, Wagner said.

Houseplant care advice on the Internet is terrible. One needs to be very knowledgeable to separate science from mythology. The houseplant forums are particularly bad.

U.S. extension program websites should be good sources, but they’re not. Many I’ve read are sophomoric in both content and writing style. My guess is that many are written by so-called master gardener volunteers or interns. I don’t know of one extension program website with 21st century houseplant advice. That’s particularly sad since they are supported by our taxes. Let us know if you know of one.

I regularly get medical advice on the internet from well-known reputable websites supported by recognized medical institutions. I have also solved computer problems with help from Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) on public newsgroups. Sadly there is nothing comparable to this regarding houseplants.

The best houseplant care advice I know about is right here. If you disagree, please feel free to tell us all.

Sansevieria survivorous

No, "survivorous" isn't really a species but it could be. Survivor is the word the author used in this well written article about Sansevieria. It's appropriate.

Click to enlarge These Sansevierias have been growing nicely under a sub-irrigation regimen since July 2004. Three of them use only .5 ounces of water per day. The fourth uses .4 ounces per day. That's not much. Can you guess which uses .4 ounces per day?

Click to enlarge Both of the 8" plants were really 6" plants potted up shortly before purchase. This, of course, was concealed at retail and why it's a good idea to inspect roots whenever feasible. Thanks to sub-irrigation they have grown nicely.

April Fools Day now April 3

 
 
Scotts Miracle Gro has proclaimed April 3 as National Repot Your Plant Day. This effectively changes April Fools day from today to the third.

Spring is coming! Early spring is an ideal time to repot houseplants or begin new container gardens.

National Repot Your Plant Day™ is Sunday, April 3rd! So, get ready to celebrate spring!

I read a lot of bad advice about houseplant maintenance in my daily research. There is none worse than National Repot Your Plant Day. What is particularly bad about this advice is that brand name corporate money funds it. Some of the copy is laughable, particularly the “emotional benefits”.

Update: This houseplant forum post is an example of the typical harm caused by the "repot remedy". There is no way a 3 foot Rubber Tree (Ficus elastica 'Decora') needs a 14 inch pot. Dolllars to donuts this plant is overwatered as a result of the recent repotting. Rubber trees/plants are low water users.

Repotting in early spring has a few key advantages:

• It helps maintain good plant health.

• You get to renew the "tired" soil in the existing pot, and thereby give the plant a fresh supply of essential nutrients.

• Stepping up to a larger pot gives the plant roots more room to grow before they enter their active growth phase.

• You can use this as a time to change the style of pots you're using or as a way to enhance your home's decor with a colorful container.

• You reap the emotional benefits that come with repotting; you feel good when you know you're doing something good for your plant. Repotting in early spring is a great way to shake off the winter blahs!

Scotts is a corporation that should know better. Further compounding this promotional fiasco is the National Gardening Association (NGA) endorsing it. Do either of these organizations have at least one staff horticulturist who really understands how to maintain plants in buildings? It appears not.

There is no need for annual houseplant repotting. Ask experienced interior plantscapers the question and wait for the laughs. Most of the plants in our inside plants lab have been installed going on 7 years. Few if any of them have required repotting.

Not only is it not necessary, the practice of repotting is inherently hazardous to the health and longevity of houseplants. Many houseplant caretakers will repot plants that do not need it and many will use too large a pot. This will add dead soil exacerbating the already common problem of over watering.

Houseplant care is not gardening. It isn’t about growing plants. It is primarily about maintaining them in a healthy condition. Ill informed outdoor gardeners, extension agents, master gardeners and outdoor gardening companies should stay away from houseplan