Since then, climate change and the green movement have taken center stage. There is constant chatter about local food production and community agriculture. Buzz words like locovore and slow food have entered our vocabulary.

Rather incredibly, the use of sub-irrigated (erroneously called “self-watering”) planters for personal or family food production has been largely ignored. All you need do is a site search on the National Gardening Association, American Community Gardening Association or all the USDA Extension Program sites combined and you’ll find very little how-to-do-it explanation of the benefits of measured sub-irrigation.

Is it simply ignorance of the subject or are there hidden agendas? I know from direct personal experience, for example, that most houseplant growers do not want their plants to live too long. Rather than grow the market, they much prefer to grow replacement plants for the ones you kill. Just don’t blame them for the fact that the plant died.

The widespread use of arcane drench and drain watering is a direct result of propaganda and scare tactics about soluble salts. Yes, soluble salts are a significant factor to deal with in well-lit greenhouse production where water and fertilizer are poured on the plants on a daily basis. The objective is to push the plants out the greenhouse door as quickly as possible.

That is not the case with the maintenance of container plants inside marginally lit buildings. Note the operative word maintenance, as in "staying alive" rather than fast growth. Greenhouse plant growing and the maintenance of containerized plants in and around buildings are two completely different subjects.

If you’re hooked on clay pots with drain holes and saucers, know that you’ve been mislead. I can’t say it any more plainly. No need to take my word for it, you can easily prove it to yourself. All you need is an open, questioning mind.

Open minds are what kids have and that’s the reason for donating my ten-year-old Inside Plants Science Lab for the good of public education in New York City where I now live. Teach the children. They will teach their parents. If you haven’t noticed, that’s a part of the new digital age. If you have a question about your computer, ask your kids.

So, have a first look at Inside Urban Green. Bookmark it and add it to your RSS feeds. I believe you’ll be glad you did.

They were shot on a desktop stage with a black cloth backdrop. I then used Photoshop Elements to remove creases, folds and debris from the desktop stage without altering the plants.

Unfortunately, I was unaware that my old CRT monitor was out of calibration. The photos that looked fine on the old screen were badly flawed. I will be re-editing all of them as soon as new software for my MacBook arrives. This has certainly been a lesson learned.

Update: All photos have been corrected.

I now live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and the lab is temporarily stored in the science lab of the Ebbets Field Middle School.

If your interest is in modern 21st century methods of maintaining plants in buildings the archived contents of this blog are the equivalent of a book on the subject.

It is straight talk without all the mumbo jumbo mythology so common in the houseplant world.

Indoor Plant Hobbyists and Others

Although not organized as a book, topics are categorized. For example, click on Sub-irrigation or Inside Plant Care or Hydroculture/Hydroponics. There are other topics well worth reading if your interest is in modern methods of maintaining plants in buildings.

See additional Topics (left column).

There is also an extensive photo collection on Flickr.com. Have a look at Digital Age Indoor Plants.

Educators

If you are an educator read about the Inside Plants Science Lab donation program at InsideGreenNYC.org. There is also an outline of the program below.

If you have an interest in this project please contact me at bobhyland[AT}insideplantslive.org.

New Blog Coming

InsideUrbanGreen.org will replace InsidePlantsLive.org in the near future. The site is under construction. The scope of the new blog will include more emphasis on urban agriculture and methods of growing vegetables on rooftops and in small city spaces. The range of topics will cover food, foliage and flowering plants in and around buildings.

An outline of plans for the Inside Plants Science Lab project.

Using modern science based methods of maintaining plants in buildings will help in the early science education of young people. Urban horticulture, or agriculture, is a subject of ever increasing importance in the new urban green environment.

The growing of foliage, food and flowers should not be confined solely to in-ground gardening hobbyists who demonstrate a tendency to be techno-averse while resisting modern 21st century methods.

Learning about measurement and methodology instead of clay pot mythology will help on the path to higher science education for children of all ages. All students will benefit whether pursuing science careers or simply living in a densely populated urban environment having limited contact with nature.

Temporary Storage

The lab is currently stored in the Ebbets Field Middle School science lab, to be moved as soon as possible to an accessible location in Brooklyn. This will be used to demonstrate the program to interested schools and organizations in the New York City area.

Initial Beta Phase - Donated

Distribution of ten rolling rack “mini-labs” to a wide cross section of public and private schools and appropriate science based organizations in the New York City area.

• One rolling rack and an assortment of plants
• Measuring tools – digital foot-candle/lux light meter, digital scale and other plant care equipment
• Statistical uploading to an online database is required
• Supported by teacher training
• Supported by InsideUrbanGreen.org, a new website

Local Roll Out Phase – With Funding

New York metro area - Distribution of additional mini-labs to science classrooms in the NYC area.

Regional Roll Out – With Funding

N.E. Corridor – No. N.J., Philadelphia, Boston

National Roll Out – With Funding

Chicago, Los Angeles and other densely populated cities across the country

Click to enlarge.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Click to enlarge.

And there it was on display outside the entrance to Trader Joe’s for just $2.99. Into my basket it went and now the Sweet Basil is living happily in a 3-liter recycled bottle. The bottle planter will be around long after the 1-gallon plastic grower pot is dropped in the recycling trash.

It took a bit of root pruning to get it into the bottle planter but that’s no big deal. I learned long ago that a sub-irrigation planter acts like an IV, delivering the precise amount of water based on the plants past water usage. Many times I've cut 1/3 to 1/2 the root ball of a plant before installing it in a sub-irrigation planter without the plant even blinking.

There’s no way that primitive top watering methods will produce such evenly distributed moisture throughout the root system—always remembering to never add so much water that it rises to the surface.

Click to enlarge.

The 3-liter bottles contained Shasta Twist Lime-Lemon Soda. These planters will hold any 6” size potted plant. You could also use them to start vegetable plants such as tomatoes and peppers.

I would buy this soda just for the bottle planters; they are that good. This is not plastic that will end up in the dump or the recycle bin. These are sustainable planters for maintaining sustainable indoor plants.

Click to enlarge.

My next recommendation would to use these recycled bottle planters. The herbs you see here were planted in recycled bottle planters on August 17. The growth rate is impressive. Roots have already spread down into the necks of the bottles. They’re located in a west window.

You can clearly see everything that is happening with the plants. The status of soil moisture and root growth are in plain sight. The biggest mistake made with sub-irrigation (aka self-watering) planters is adding water to the reservoir without checking the soil moisture. Over watering is the usual result.

It is most important to never add so much water that it rises by capillary action all the way to the soil surface. The top layer (approx. ¾”) should always be dry.

My belief is that if your natural light level is in doubt, auxiliary light from one or two CFL desk lamps would accomplish successful herb production. I have not tested artificial light herb growing but plan to in the future.

The planter also appears on the website of a trendy plant store in an urban location. This is the description (bold type added by me).

The Eva Solo flowerpot has been made to extend and improve the life of your house plants and indoor herbs.

Just glance at the water level in the vase, and you will know immediately if the plant is thirsty.

The vase reservoir can hold enough water for the plant to only need watering once a week, and possibly less frequently, depending on the circumstances.

There are 3 reasons why purchasers of this planter will most likely experience plant failure...as in death.

1. The statement "Just glance at the water level and you will know if the plant is thirsty" is perhaps the most egregious misrepresentation. It comes directly from the manufacturer.

Filling the reservoir when it is empty instead of checking the soil moisture is perhaps the primary reason for misuse and failure of "self-watering" (sub-irrigation) planters. Frequent refilling of the reservoir without checking the soil moisture will almost certainly lead to over watering, root rot and plant death.

I see similar terminology all over the web. The sellers of these products are either ignorant of capillary sub-irrigation or they're being disingenuous. Neither is excusable.

2. The name self-watering is a misnomer. Anyone who understands plant physiology knows that a plant does not have intelligence to turn water on and off. If they did there would be no such thing as over watering and we know that isn't true. So, who is the 'self' in self-watering?

The term self-watering also immediately identifies the user as someone who doesn't really understand capillary action. If they did, they wouldn't use the term.

3. The flowering mini-rose in the planter has appeal particularly to women who love flowers. Unfortunately, it is a spider mite magnet and has a very high risk of dying when grown indoors. If you have lots of time and some money to waste give them a try.

These cool looking bottle bins from Israel could be a supply source for arguably the best sub-irrigation planters and propagators you can make. This is win-win recycling! What a great project for school kids.

Couple recycling with plant sustainability for a truly green world of indoor plants.

Via: designboom

Click to enlarge.

Here’s another application for recycled bottles . The tops are clear plastic deli containers. They happen to be a perfect press fit to the circumference of 2-liter plastic bottles. You couldn’t manufacture them to spec any better.

The shorter ones on the left (16 oz deli containers) are propagating Ficus pumila (Creeping Fig) cuttings. The medium is coir . The taller one (24 oz deli container) on the right contains 3 Schefflera arboricola (Dwarf Hawaiian Schefflera) cuttings.

They are located on a shelf under a 4' fluorescent shop light. I’ve observed roots on the Ficus pumila cuttings in about 2 weeks.

You could make them taller simply by using a taller top (cover) section. Also note air holes poked in the propagator second from the right. I don't think they're necessary. We'll see.

I now have 20 recycled bottle planters and counting. They contain a variety of plants including an assortment of herbs. I’ll post photos of the herb planters soon.

Of all the smaller size sub-irrigation planters I’ve designed over the past 9 nine years these are proving to be the best. I’ve watched plant roots making a beeline to the bottom like a dog chasing a bone.

The interesting aspect to all this is that these recycled bottle planters are so good they’re worth manufacturing. Someone could be recycling them on a larger scale. I have some ideas to pursue.

The Society of American Florists (SAF) has published a new report on the floriculture market, which includes potted foliage and flowering plants.

The domination of this market by women is not new news but it once again triggers the question of why.

The report says that men account for only a little over 20% of the purchases and women almost 80%. I suggest it’s even higher than that on a product usage basis. It is highly likely that half of the male purchases are for women. The actual use of these products could easily be 90% female and a mere 10% male.

So, we have somewhere around 150 million men who are absent from this market. With numbers like these, you'd think someone would be doing something about it. I can assure you that if these were corporate numbers, something would be happening or heads would roll. It's known as "time for plans and programs." Anyone steering this boat?

What is it that makes floriculture a female market? If you have an opinion, please share it by email. Thanks!

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