I have been trying to avoid the pull of the Orchid obsession, but it is really starting to pull me in.
I laid my first African leaf in the Spring of 2007. I didn't do anything special them and I did not give them any special treatment at all, and yet they have all done well. When I first started laying the leaves, I used a mix of peat, perlite and a tiny bit of vermiculite (I have since cut out the use of peat and moved to coir, and I no longer use vermiculite). I started out by putting several leaves in a small shallow container, but now I use Dixie cups, and plant one leaf per cup. When laying the leaves, I would slice the leaf stem on a angle, and then lay them at roughly a 45 degree angle against the cup. I never put them baggies as I find they rot very fast, but I also have a humidifier running 24/7. I normally just put them under lights, and let them go.
Many people ask how long it takes from the time you lay the leaf to have a blooming plant. The general consensus is about 9 months (give or take a month or so). Mine have followed the average, and they are all getting ready to bloom. I remember the excitement I felt, when my first babies made their way to the surface, now I am feeling the excitement to see what some of these flowers look like.
The cuttings I recieved of my Black Pagoda lipstick plant have rooted, and quite quickly. When I did the "tug test", they were rooted firmly. It has only been 4 weeks, I am very impressed. When I get cuttings from other plants, I always put them in a pot and then in a baggie, and seal it up. I find since I have been using baggies, I do not lose as many cuttings.
I took cuttings from a bunch of Schlums back in November, potted them up, and put them under lights in my humidity dome (I would use baggies as well on these, but they fit in the humidity dome unlike some larger cuttings). All of them have rooted as well, I find these very easy to propagate.
My other Schlum (pic here) has perked up some since this photo was taken. Since there was still one segment that looked pretty pitiful, I pulled it to check the roots and found it was starting to rot.
I have never had this happen before, and I not sure why only one of the cuttings in the pot rotted and the other 2 were fine. It may have been damaged already, or just too far gone when it was potted up.
I think it would be fun for the people I "blog" with to tell others what they find are the most important objects or tools used for their plant addiciton. I believe we could all learn some pretty neat things.
I am going to tag a couple people and hope they return to my blog to share with me and others what they use the most when it comes to your houseplant hobby.
Here are my top 5 handies that I use.
Dixie cups (plastic or paper) for plants that have small root systems or for cuttings. I put holes in the bottom for drainage.
Baggies for putting your cuttings in, and the Dixie cup fits perfectly in it.
Butterfly clips to train several plants on a trellis or to control vines and pin them up.
Plant saucers for my plants so that watering doesn't turn into a disater ( you can't really see it too well in the picture, but it is in the bottom right hand corner under the Dixie cup that doesn't have the writing in it.)
And last but not least, ceiling hooks to obviously hang plants everywhere to save space.
I hope someone learns something new from this post, iI hope others will get ideas from other peoples answers.
Enjoy everyone
I am so glad that there are certain types of plants that can and will bloom in the dark days of Winter. I get nervous when the days get colder and darker thinking it will be months before I see flowers, but this never happens. Reason......because there are plants that flower under less light than others, and there are plants that are considered short day plants (which means they need so many hours of darkness to flower, such as a schlum or kalanchoe).
The plants I have seen flower over the winter, that are in my collection are:
African Violets
Various Lipstick plants (Aechynanthus)
Azaleas
Schlums (Holiday Cacti)
Kalanchoe
Goldfish plants (Nematanthus)
Fuchsia
String of Hearts (Ceropegia Woodii)
Crown of Thorns (Euphorbia milli)
Passion Vine (Passiflora)
Poinsettia
The above links will take you to some of my older blog posts, each one having a picture of the
flower.
I thought my Passion Vine (Passiflora) was a goner after I brought in from outside this past fall, since I let the frost get to it. I took a few cuttings in hopes to save some of it. Thankfully the plant itself made it (the cuttings did not). I set it aside for the winter off to the side of the 400W, and surprise surprise, it started blooming.
I had my doubts about even keeping this alive for the winter, since it won't live outside here in zone 2. I tried overwintering some peonies, but for some reason, that did not work out. So needless to say, I am really happy to see this living, let alone blooming in the middle of winter.
I had to stick in a couple close up shots, just because I can....lol. This would be quite the plant to play "Name this plant" with, and only use close up shots.
I just love flowers, they are all so different, and it just amazes me that nature can create things this beautiful.
My Hoya lacunosa is now up to 3 peduncles, as the pic shows. The peduncle on the left keeps getting buds, then dropping them off (normally right about this size too), the peduncle in the middle is only a couple weeks old, so this is the first time I have seen buds on it, and the one on the left was just discovered today, it is barely a cm long. It has teased and taunted me for months, but now it has competition......haha Lacunosa.
I noticed my Hoya nummularioides has 2 new peduncles today. These peduncles sure can develop fast. I swear I looked at it a couple days ago and there was nothing. Mine is a fairly small plant still, but this is one hoya that is said to flower very early, even as a cutting. It isn't normally considered one that is difficult to get flowers on. For more in depth info, here is a great link (why repeat the same things many others more skilled than myself have said). It grows about a foot from an eastern window, but it always gets fluorescent light as well.
AND, can you believe it, I was checking all my plants under my humidity dome, and I have the teeniest tiniest dixie cup of a Hoya serpens, and it HAS peduncles. I almost sh*t right there....lol. All you plant lovers know the feeling.....admit it. This is a hoya that is said to be pickier and more prissy than some of the other hoya's. I haven't ever grown it out of the humidity dome, and since I haven't had a trace of rot yet on it, I am definitely leaving it in there. I wouldn't say it gets any sunlight, only fluorescent lights (maybe indirect sun, but not much). So like they say, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. Again for more info, go here.
The Hoya serpens has got the tiniest peduncles I have ever seen. I am pretty sure they will grow larger, but right now they are tiny, I tried the tape measure thing in the above pic, if anyone can see it....lol. The peduncle itself is about a half cm long, which means those little developing leaves in the pic below are about the size of say a lower case letter in this post. **I still can't get over the shots my new cam takes (I have to admit I love the photography aspect of having a blog as well**
There is one more hoya left that I noticed had new peduncles. My Hoya bella.....which is another hoya that tends to be fussier than the others. I will admit to having many problems with this one. I might have the watering almost right now, but so far I have found that when I water, it tends to get a few yellow leaves that fall off. You can read more about this hoya here. Fussy or not, it has a couple new peduncles forming, so it must be somewhat happy.....or near death...lol (some plants will flower right before they are about to die, in hopes to procreate).
I am just sitting here laughing at myself because I am really excited about all these peduncles. Almost giddy, Not too many of my Hoya's have flowered yet, so I can't wait to see any of them flower!! Okay, I think my heart rate is starting to slow down now, I just had to share the news....lol.
It felt like a little tiny piece of my Thanksgiving cactus slapped me in the face....lol. I have seven of these guys in various places of my home, all growing nicely. My daughter came to me yesterday and said "Oh, by the way, my Thanksgiving cactus is getting flowers again." WHAT!! So off I go, camera in hand, and sure enough....buds. **Slap** WTF?? So now I am mad at all my other plants (only Thanksgiving cacti), because they don't have any buds, not even signs of buds. So I did what was necessary and sent them to her room.
Must be some magic happening in her room......although I am pretty positive it is just because my plants don't get the 12 hours uninterrupted darkness that I am sure her plants get. I have fluorescent lights in my plant area, and since they aren't on a timer, and since my plants are just off the dining room / kitchen area (high traffic 20 hours of the day), they don't get the same dark treatment as her room. Bad news for her....lol, since that means I have to send more plants up there, and she already complains that she has too many plants. How can anyone ever have too many plants? I just don't understand this concept....lol.
My hubby was taking pictures the other day of some of our plants, and as I was looking through them last night, I noticed the cutest little sight. In the back of the room, where the extension cord runs up the wall, my hoya has decided to use it to climb. It is just amazing how these plants will twine and climb onto anything they can get their vines onto.
My "cupped" African Violet finally opened a flower. I don't think any of my AV's are this pretty, maybe it is just the thrill of the unknown, but WOW, this one almost took my breath away.
It is just so perfect in every way. The purple is bright, and full of sparkles. The white star in the middle is such a perfect star shape. And the pollen sacks form a perfect circle. I have never seen such a perfect arrangement of pollen sacks on any of my AV's.
This is the AV with the weird cup shaped leaves I mentioned in a previous post, and I just love it. I am definitely going to take a couple leaves from this one, and make babies to give away.
I went back tonight to try and get some more shots of this perfect flower, and the petals had started to close. This is another trait I have never seen in any of my AV's. I tried googling it, because I am sure I read somewhere that a few of them do this, but of course, I came up with nothing. It has been a few hours and the flower still has not closed up completely, but it has closed considerably since nightfall. I can't wait to see if it re opens in the morning. If anyone can find info about this particular trait in AV's, please send me a link. I would love to read more about it.
On a final note, I had to mention something I have not seen yet with my philodendrons. It could be that I just don't know as much about them as my other "more loved" plants, and it is a common occurrence, but still, it is new to me.
This philo is much like the "Autumn" cultivar, just a large red philo, that normally throws out a leaf from the central stalk. Not much to talk about, but the other day I noticed that in addition to it's "new" leaf, it has grown a whole new leaf or maybe a branch. Not sure which it is, since it is only "there", and if it is a leaf it has not opened. The point is there is two growth points now, where I have only normally seen one. I have never seen this before, so if there are any philo lovers out there that can tell me about this, again, please leave a link or the info.
