|
Post by Kimby on Jan 11, 2011 15:35:40 GMT
If you have, or can get, a regular fluorescent fixture, you can use special full-spectrum bulbs in it, K2. Should do the trick. Put the plug into a timer to replicate the day length you want, and you're good to go. (I once lived in a room without a window for a year, and the light I rigged up was as much for my mental health as it was for the plants!)
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 11, 2011 17:57:57 GMT
Oh, you Montana marijuana farmers are so knowledgeable!
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Jan 11, 2011 18:26:11 GMT
*snork!*
That does pretty much explain the necessity for a new house in a remote location.
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Jan 11, 2011 18:55:32 GMT
Actually it's all legal, so we can get a "caregiver's license" and grow pot for our ailing friends. Or just get a doctor to say we have some sort of discomfort and get a permit to grow our own (6 plants per patient) or to buy it at one of the many store-front dispensaries, popping up like mushrooms all over town...
|
|
|
Post by tod2 on Oct 6, 2013 11:22:00 GMT
A house plant at the hairdressers.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Oct 6, 2013 20:26:04 GMT
Lovely! That looks like an ideal spot for a Spathiphyllum.
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on Oct 7, 2013 1:01:07 GMT
Still hoping to see photos of Casimira's Hoya plant....
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on May 20, 2020 19:56:59 GMT
I think my ficus is on its last legs. I thought so once before about 3 years ago, but it made a miraculous recovery, so I'm giving it one last chance.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on May 20, 2020 21:32:10 GMT
Did you move it recently? Sometimes that makes them hysterical & they tear out all their hair, i.e., drop leaves furiously.
|
|
|
Post by lagatta on May 21, 2020 10:20:12 GMT
My ficus is huge. But sometimes he drops leaves, which frightens me. His name is Fabrizio (a Stendhal character, also known as Fabrice).
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on May 24, 2020 20:27:27 GMT
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Oct 26, 2020 16:24:12 GMT
Today I bought a tiny Codiaeum variegatum (croton) at the hardware store for 2 euros. I repotted it with a bit of water, and I will keep you informed as to whether it dies or not under the window in my attic room.
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 26, 2020 18:33:22 GMT
Ooh exciting. My aspidistra has grown a huge leaf...it's much bigger than the other leaves so it looks odd. Hopefully there will be more enormous leaves in the Spring
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 21, 2020 19:58:02 GMT
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Dec 22, 2020 16:06:27 GMT
Today I bought a tiny Codiaeum variegatum (croton) at the hardware store for 2 euros. I repotted it with a bit of water, and I will keep you informed as to whether it dies or not under the window in my attic room. I am still learning how to handle this little item, but I think it has grown a bit. I have also learned that if I water it too much it droops. I think this is because it sucks up too much water and the leaves become heavy. Yesterday I saw that it was drooping a bit, which I attributed to the room being too warm and also maybe because it was becoming dry again. I took it downstairs to the kitchen and gave it a bit to drink. This morning it had totally perked up again.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Dec 22, 2020 19:19:48 GMT
|
|
|
Post by kerouac2 on Dec 22, 2020 19:37:45 GMT
Very interesting, but I am afraid it is going to have to adapt to a northern French attic with limited light or die. So far it is not complaining most of the time, and I do have a spray bottle that I use on it every now and then, because I could tell that the croton was eyeing it.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Dec 22, 2020 22:32:25 GMT
I thought you got lots of sunlight in your kitchen. Isn't that where your herbs & the hibiscus are?
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 23, 2020 9:33:31 GMT
Yes it's a clivia... present from my big brother . All my houseplants are on the kitchen island overwinter. The bathroom and conservatory are too cold and too small. Everything gets moved in the early summer I quite often put them outide when the weather is warm enough.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Dec 25, 2020 3:00:08 GMT
I gave some plants to a friend today, but it was a frustrating experience. He bought a house last year & has fixed it up so that it now has a really nice roof terrace which has BIG cacti in BIG pots on it. I gave him some cuttings of honeysuckle because he wants a fast-growing vine. He didn't know what it was (he's German -- I thought they were all into gardening), but I told him his girlfriend would. The part that got me was that he was generally dismissive of any non-huge succulent. I gave him a nice Dracaena -- maybe warneckii or maybe something else. (some I have are white in the middle of the leaves and green on the edges & some are vice-versa). Then I had to convince him not to put it directly out in the death sun of his patio. He did redeem himself in my eyes, despite the inability to appreciate any and all succulents, by recognizing and coveting my Hoya carnosa, saying that he grows it back in Germany. Yes, I did share.
|
|
|
Post by questa on Dec 27, 2020 1:16:21 GMT
I have 3 villas in my terrace at the retirees village. I divided an aspidistra so I could give them a little present each. They are all keen gardeners and as soon as they saw them they said, "Oh...the famous 'Cast-iron plant!'" I had never heard this name but they said it was called this as it was as strong as cast-iron and almost impossible to kill.
Has anyone here heard this name, or other interesting plant nicknames? In Central Australia there is a thorn bush that grows into a large, spreading and very tangled mass.If you try to make your way through it, horse and rider gets trapped. It is called the "Wait awhile Bush"...a curse of early explorers.
|
|
|
Post by bixaorellana on Dec 27, 2020 3:03:13 GMT
Yes, I've always heard Aspidistra called the cast-iron plant.
|
|
|
Post by patricklondon on Dec 27, 2020 9:57:10 GMT
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on Dec 27, 2020 20:21:11 GMT
I found it quite difficult to get hold of an aspidistra plant, I don't think that they're particularly fashionable atm...or they weren't 2 years ago when I found a small, bedraggled specimen at a little, out of the way garden centre. I nursed it back to health and now its growing quite well.
In the 70s I remember a houseplant called a 'shrimp plant' with little pink bracts hanging from the branches..not seen one for years.
|
|
|
Post by mickthecactus on Dec 27, 2020 21:27:24 GMT
My Dad grew the shrimp plant (Belloperone guttata?) and was very proud of it.
|
|
|
Post by mickthecactus on Dec 28, 2020 10:44:05 GMT
Here’s our family Aspidistra. Lives outside all year round,
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on May 10, 2022 15:34:14 GMT
Some of the houseplants have been repotted and are on holiday in the conservatory Moved a few into the kitchen window...
|
|
|
Post by Kimby on May 14, 2022 16:52:33 GMT
Time for an update My husband has a green thumb and is the keeper of our house plants, which at one time numbered over 70. He took a course in houseplants while in college in the 70's during which he started a jade plant from a cutting. 30 years later, it's still thriving and the size of a small shrub. When we visited Michigan State University a few years back on a nostalgia tour for him, he showed me the campus greenhouse and there was a giant jade plant. Perhaps the very one he'd taken his cuttings from! He also has a hoya from a cutting from his mother's hoya which was started as a cutting from HER mother's hoya. It blooms with fuzzy white flowers with red centers that smell heavenly at nighttime... Update 2022: The big jade - that Mr. Kimby had longer than he’s had me - got too huge to repot and began to fail in its tight quarters, looking less and less lovely. It was headed for the garbage can when I cut off several of the nicer looking stems and repotted them. The cuttings took root and are thriving, becoming another big lovely jade tree. It even bloomed this year (one flower sprig only). Now IT needs repotting, but at least the two of us can lift it. The Hoya that came from a cutting from Mr. Kimby’s mom whose Hoya came from HER mother, finally gave up the ghost this winter and we replaced it with one of two plants we had started from cuttings. Lighting conditions and temps in our house are such that our Hoyas don’t bloom prolifically, but cuttings we’ve given to friends with more hospitable plant conditions bloom and grow like crazy. The foreground is more Hoya cuttings we are “starting” in water. The top shelf in the background hosts the replacement Hoya. Below it is an ancient Christmas cactus that flowers prolifically every winter. As we travel for longer periods, we are just not replacing the plants that die. Or replacing them with sculptures, or mobiles, in the case of hanging plants.
|
|
|
Post by cheerypeabrain on May 15, 2022 11:35:43 GMT
Beautiful jade plant Kimby. I always feel sorry for the deformed giants baking in the local Chinese takeaway window....I even offered to water them but they said that they were watered regularly (I don't believe them..)
|
|
|
Post by mickthecactus on May 15, 2022 13:53:41 GMT
Strange really because the Chinese are generally pretty small of stature.
|
|