Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
December 2002 “In My Garden” #37
Many winter-blooming houseplants are from the tropics and need warmth, bright light, and high humidity.
picture: An Aglanema (Chinese evergreen family) is a great tropical houseplant. Keep out of direct sun and water before they get dried out. It loves bright indirect light and an occasional bath.
Indoors in the winter, humidity is the biggest challenge. Central heating results in humidity levels close to those of the Sahara desert.
You can raise humidity by:
• grouping plants close to each other so that they get the benefit of each other’s evaporating water;
• putting saucers of damp pebbles under the plants (but make sure that the plants don’t sit in water);.
• top-dressing the plants’ soil with moss and dampen the moss daily;
• bathing the leaves weekly; and
• misting (helps only if done several times a day).
All of the above will get the humidity up to some where between 25% and 45%, benefiting your health and keeping the plants from dying. These steps, though, won’t get you anywhere near the plant’s desired 60%. However, outside of a greenhouse, you’re not going to get indoor winter humidity this high and you won’t be comfortable if you did.
What to do? The trade secret: plants have many needs: light, humidity, temperature, air circulation, water, nutrients, soil, and PH-balance, to name just a few. If you can’t perfectly supply one element, then do your best to supply the ones next most important to the plant. Often this will allow the plant to compensate for the missing ingredient.
With tropicals this would mean:
• warmth (68F-78F days; 10 degrees cooler at night);
• light (all-day bright light with at least some sun , but watch out for scorching from direct noon sun);
• water (water thoroughly and then let partially dry); and
• nutrients (use a quarter-strength tropical flowering plant fertilizer weekly).
When a plant isn’t everything getting it needs, watch out for bugs. But, please, skip the chemical warfare. Inspect your tropicals weekly and rinse them under the kitchen faucet. If you see a bug, cold water and insecticidal soap work fine.
picture: plants in the maranta (prayer plant) group like humidly and hate drafts. They also hate chlorine, so make sure only use water that’s been left out over night. They also need to be babied and definitely NOT over watered during their rest period. The rest period can be our summer or winter depending on whether the plant thinks it’s still its original southern hemisphere home.
picture: Anthuriums are gorgeous but seldom do well at home due to low levels of humidity. Try the Anthurium scherzerianum which is supposed to be one of the best for the house.
Photo credits: Sue Sweeney
© Sue Sweeney 2005