Indoor Plant Care Tips Guide

I trust that someone will let me know if I'm hitting the air-plant flowers thing too hard. Three posts in less than a month about the same thing -- maybe it gets tedious. In my defense, there's only just so much going on at the moment to talk about. And a lot of what is going on (seeding of Violas at work, for example) is not terribly interesting or visual. So. There's at least one more

Hippie buttons (Conyza piscis), originally called georgeweed, is an upright-growing herbaceous biennial native to northwestern Australia. The leaves are digitate, with 7 to 15 needle-shaped leaflets. Leaflets are typically about 0.5 to 0.75 inches long (13-19 mm) and the upper surface is covered with downy grayish hairs. The first-year form is prostrate and inconspicuous; during the second year,

Nothing huge here, just a nice, pretty little orange flower. This particular Aeschynanthus has been at work for as long as I have, albeit in somewhat different form (it had originally been much larger and coplanted with a pair of Dieffenbachias). Last winter, we separated the plants and took a huge number of cuttings of this plant, which took forever to root and grow but eventually were turned

We've had these Neoregelia NOIDs 'Nuance' at work for a while now, and they've been in bloom, or at least about to bloom, for months. They're striking, I guess: the plants are maybe a foot and a half across, with a hot pink center. Nobody's wanted to buy them, though, for some reason. (My guess? I think people are interested, but they assume that since the plants are unusual-looking, they must be

I have on occasion been accused of being Scroogey, and a holiday-hater, and so on and so forth. I haven't done any serious observing of Christmas since 2002 or 2003, and even that wasn't a lot. But look. December hates me. In 1987, for example, I got a ruptured appendix and spent eight days in the hospital; in 1996, I was getting over having the flu, clinically depressed, and having to deal with

Yes, it's kinda creepy. But it's supposed to be creepy. Also oddly familiar . . . but enough about my upbringing."Ladyshave" is a better song but a less interesting video. If you're interested.

(This is the sixth and final plant profile in the Wizard of Oz series.)I find Adenium obesum a frustrating plant to have to deal with. It's not so much that they're difficult to keep alive -- as far as I can tell, so long as you don't overwater them, they'll stay alive -- as that they're just absurdly easy to frighten. Which raises the question, how do you know when you've frightened an Adenium?

Text may be more legible if picture is opened in a new window. Also it's easier to see that the Anthurium in the back has its eyes closed.I wish my readers a festive and enjoyable holiday of their choosing (including but not limited to: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, Gurnenthar's Ascendance,1 Festivus, Boxing Day Eve, Cephalopodmas, Monkey) unless they prefer not to enjoy or

In the profile post for Syngonium podophyllum, I raised the question of whether variegated Syngoniums would retain their coloration once they began to vine or developed larger, lobed leaves, and then irresponsibly ignored the question because I had no idea how to answer it.I can now report a partial answer to the question: It's not lobed and climbing, but this unknown 'Allusion'-type cultivar has

I lead a fairly dull life. Any time not claimed by work or watering the plants at home goes to the blog, pretty much, and I only occasionally get the chance to do anything else. Sometimes this wears me down a bit, and I feel an urgent need to get out of Iowa City and go somewhere else. Usually this means going to a garden center in another city and buying more plants, which is counterproductive,

This one we owe to WCW, who insisted that we try to get Amazon lilies, even though the supplier tried to talk me out of it when I asked. The issue was that they weren't in bloom when I was asking, and the supplier didn't want to send me a bunch of plants that weren't in bloom, only to have me turn around and complain that they weren't in bloom. Or something like that. I was never quite clear on

I'm not a particularly big fan of this plant, though I can't explain quite why: I can't see anything terribly wrong with it, and I don't have any bad associations with it as far as I can remember. Though I don't like trying to clean them up once they're mostly bloomed-out. Those little dead flowers get everywhere.K. blossfeldiana 'Klabat.'Perhaps it's just a matter of taste. They're certainly

Not particularly good likenesses, but I think we can all see where s/he's going with this. Via Joe.My.God., who got it from Towleroad, who got it from NewNowNext, who (apparently) got it from promotional material for Logo's upcoming (?) new show, RuPaul's Drag Race, because NewNowNext is affiliated with Logo in some difficult-to-parse way.This is blog-relevant because I was publicly wondering

With some of the stuff we have in the greenhouse, I'm never sure whether I should be pinching off the flowers or letting them go. Strobilanthes dyerianus (Persian shield) is an especially tough call, because it seems like there must be some kind of trick to getting foliage instead of flowers, and I cannot figure out what that trick is. Maybe less light? Anybody know?

Click for a considerably larger, but still more or less in focus, version.I wouldn't have bothered with this one if it had just been green and purple, or even orange and purple, but the green-orange-purple combination was interesting enough that I figured I had to get a picture.I was this close to buying this one, but I restrained myself. Not sure whether I expect you to be proud of me or

In yesterday's post, I told you I bought a Schlumbergera 'Caribbean Dancer' from work. Today, I was talking to someone about it, and was reading the tags in the plants, to see whether we had a different one that I'd liked previously ('Orange Beach,' if I remember correctly). Apparently 'Caribbean Dancer' is part of a series, which are all also named '[Something] Dancer,' and I guess I'm okay with

Hell yeah, I bought it. I was not aware that this sort of thing, with the two different colors on the same flower, was even possible.UPDATE: See also the Schlumbergera truncata cvv. profile.

(This is part 5 of the Wizard of Oz plant profiles.) In the movie, the Scarecrow doesn't get much respect. Had he not spoken, Dorothy would have walked right by him. He can't intimidate the crows at all. He gets set on fire once, and he's apparently brainless to boot. Not a curriculum vitae that inspires confidence. Similarly, Cryptanthus spp. aren't high-profile in the houseplant world. We

I thought, until reviewing this picture, that what we had were mainly fungus gnats. This isn't a fungus gnat, though: it's some kind of smallish, fungus-eating fly. I know you're thinking, but, Mr_S, aren't fungus gnats smallish, fungus-eating flies? Well, yeah, actually. But it's different. This is some other, more housefly-looking species. I know it sounds like a pretty trivial distinction, but

It's generally the case that a plant that's not doing well will become uglier. In fact, that's often enough the rule that I can't think of any exceptions, until this one:What's going on here is that this particular plant's roots were rotting. I don't know why this would lead to rainbow colors (I've never seen them turn red under any other circumstances), but there you go. Ardisia crenata (coral

(See the other transmitted light posts here.) Plectranthus verticillatus. Don't know what the little dark speckles are doing there. Chlorophytum x 'Fire Flash.' You know, the color combination really is pretty. It's a shame the leaves turn so dramatically ugly when they go. Philodendron 'Congo Green.' Awfully similar to the first post's Philodendron hederaceum micans. Ficus elastica, immature

Picture may be slightly improved by opening it in a different window.I find air plants interesting, but I don't have any myself, nor do I think I'm likely to in the future. There's something off-putting, for me, about any plant that doesn't need soil. (I still think orchids, though beautiful, are a little untrustworthy.)WCW thinks air plants are awesome, though: when we got this last shipment of

Dance pop from 1992, back when electronic music was going to be the next big thing and raves were going to overthrow the oppressive establishment once and for all and usher in a brand new world of peace and love. Boy did that not work out. But the hype was fun. I still love this album (O3): it's like electronica, but it sounds okay even when you're not on ecstasy. (I know! I wouldn't have

I figure if I have a top ten houseplants list, I should also do a bottom ten. For the balance. Or because it's fun to rip on plants that have given me trouble. I'm using the same criteria here as in the previous list (difficulty / beauty / anxiety), but I've left out some things that scored low because I haven't actually tried to grow them, and it seems unfair to call a plant bad if I've never

I've probably done this variety, and similar varieties, of poinsettia an unkindness in the past by assuming it was one of those spray-painted ones. Spray-painting poinsettias is wrong. It's doublesuperwrong if it's spray paint of a color that poinsettias don't normally come in, and triplesuperplusnastywrong if there's glitter involved. I have no logical basis for saying this: it's just

This plant, and a second one just like it, have been in the greenhouse for a few weeks now; the boss and her husband picked a couple up from one of our local suppliers. There's no cultivar name attached to it, and I know nothing about it besides the species: it's a Codiaeum variegatum. It does seem to be, possibly, more mite-resistant than the standard varieties, though it might just be that the

I've never written a book review before. A book report, yes (though even that was fifteen years ago), but not a review. So I'm not sure what to do here, and you'll have to bear with me. Fortunately, a quick Google search for "how to write a book review" has at least given me a pretty solid crutch to lean on, and if this post doesn't rise to the level of art, well, I'd settle for being thought

I like Beallaras. I don't know if they're difficult to grow (I suspect probably they are, or you'd be seeing them by the truckload instead of Phalaenopsis), but they just have a nice look to them. This particular plant is notable for having multiple colors of flower on the same spike: the older ones, like the one pictured, are a dark purple, and the newer, younger ones (you can see part of one in

What is it with desert plants wanting to put their flowers way high in the air, anyway? Are there no pollinators near the ground? I'm just wondering. I've been waiting for this one for a while; we got it in June, and although it seemed to be doing more or less okay, the new leaves kept getting smaller and smaller, which irked me: now nobody's ever going to want to buy you, I told it. Then at

I've seen better pictures of this plant elsewhere on-line, but it's not like I didn't try to get a good picture. The lighting was apparently problematic.You get the basic idea anyway. This is the plant I mentioned last Friday, the Paphiopedilum that attacked me and wouldn't let me leave without it. I've always liked the mottled Paphiopedilum leaves, and the flowers . . . well, I can't really