“Eureka!” on the Lighting Aisle

I went to Lowe’s the other day with my sister, who is remodeling her bathroom. We picked out some switch plates and towel bars then headed over to the lighting department. My mind started to wander to the houseplants I had planned on watering that day but had abandoned for this home-improvement excursion. Then I had a plant-related “Eureka!”

We were looking at over-the-sink sconces. The display shows a great many different, yet nearly identical, wall-mounted bare-bulb fixtures. Underneath these are rows of glass lampshades in different colors, shapes, and textures. You choose your basic fixture, then whichever shade you want to go over the light bulbs.

I realized that one of these shades would make a perfect cover for a small humidity-loving houseplant. Placed over the plant, it acts as a mini greenhouse, letting in light but trapping moist air. Because it is open at the top as well as the bottom (the narrow end would screw into the light fixture, if I had bought one of them, too), it allows some air to escape, so the environment won’t get too damp or stale.

It also looks pretty cool. I chose a clear shade with bubbles embedded in the glass. It cost about $5. Here it is over one of my young (six months) African violets, Saintpaulia ‘Stormy Rage’.

3/14/2007 10:13:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

A Good Weekend

Over the weekend I visited Kane’s Flower World, a greenhouse and nursery in Middleton, Massachusetts. I needed to get a cactus to fill a space in one of my dish gardens, and my baby African violets were ready for dividing, so I needed some supplies.

I had started these violets from leaf cuttings. Last summer I ordered leaves from Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses, an African violet specialist. I got two leaves each of ten different cultivars, and stuck them in plastic pots of potting mix with extra perlite. Nearly all of the leaves produced a baby plant; some produced more than one.  

I divided some of them several months ago, planting the babies into one-inch clay pots. Huge mistake! The size and make-up of these pots mean they dry out very quickly. It has been nearly impossible to keep those violets watered. The majority of them died.

So I bought three-inch square plastic pots at Kane’s for the ones I was dividing this weekend. I also bought some vermiculite to mix into the potting soil, to help retain moisture. (I add perlite, too, to lighten the mix; violet roots have trouble moving through heavy soil.)

Now I have 14 baby violets in 14 plastic pots on a cookie sheet by the window. I had some pots and mix left over, so I started cuttings from a mature violet and a streptocarpus.

And, besides the cactus I needed to fill that space, I bought three more and made another dish garden. It was a good weekend!

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2/20/2007 4:49:05 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [7] 

A Field Trip in the City

“New England Grows,” an annual green industry trade show, took place this week in Boston. Landscapers, garden designers, nursery owners, arborists, groundskeepers, teachers, and other garden professionals come to this event to see the plants and equipment that will help them do their best work in the coming year. The show includes a series of lectures and demonstrations, too.

Liz and I had a chance to visit the show yesterday. It was a cold, windy walk from our office to the Convention Center, marked by a few wrong turns. But the sight I saw when we finally got there warmed me right up. (With help from the hot chocolate we managed to hunt down.) The front lobby looks down on the main exhibition floor, which, being covered with garden supply exhibits looked much like spring.

Besides admiring the exhibits of plants, pots, and tools, we sat in on a pest-management lecture given by Leanne Pundt of the University of Connecticut. The talk was geared toward industry people (naturally, that being the audience), who are trying to fight pests and diseases on a large scale. But I did pick up some tips to use in my own garden:

1. Learn the cultural requirements of my plants and meet them as best I can. Healthy plants are more able to fight pests and diseases.

2. “Scout” my garden regularly. Look for symptoms on plants, the pests themselves, and the activity of pests’ natural enemies. Inspect new plants as I get them.

3. Choose native plants, which are more likely to attract beneficial insects and the pests’ natural enemies.

From the slides I recognized that last summer some of my columbines (Aquilegia) had columbine leafminers. The columbines were some of my favorites of what I planted last spring. I have Aquilegia canadensis ‘Little Lanterns’, A. alpine ‘Alpine Blue’, and A. vulgaris plena ‘Rose Barlow’. I will follow Leanne’s advice to be sure to choose native columbines. (Of the three that I have so far, only A. canadensis is native, and I do think it was not affected by the miners, though I’m just going by memory. I have to keep better notes!)

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2/9/2007 11:33:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1] 

    My interest in plants and gardening began in my childhood. It is something I picked up from my mother. (Judging by letters we’ve already received from readers, this is a common scenario!) My mum has always had a great collection of houseplants, and I always enjoyed helping her care for them. One of my earliest memories is of helping her create a terrarium to give as a birthday present to a girl down the street. I was about four. I remember feeling a great sense of wonder at looking at the tiny forest we had just built inside a fish bowl—and feeling more than a bit jealous when we gave it to the neighbor.

    As I got a little older I became very interested in cacti and other succulents. I enjoyed making desert dish gardens, reading cactus books, rearranging my windowsill display, and starting from seed. Actually, I still enjoy doing all those things. But I have expanded my indoor plant collection to include other types of plants. I am building a collection of African violets, some of which I propagated from plants belonging to my mother.

    Working at Horticulture inspired me to start an outdoor garden. This spring will start my garden’s third year. It is only a small bed, about eight by eight feet. The first year I did all annuals; last year I added some perennials. I’m using my space to figure out what outdoor plants I like best, to learn by doing, and to just have fun.  I’ll fill you in as I go.

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1/26/2007 3:46:48 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [4]