Archive for April, 2007

Aglaonema

The Chinese evergreen, Aglaonema, is easy to handle. It is extremely popular for dish gardens and for growing in water. The leaves are green and tapered. Cuttings will root in water, damp sand, or sphagnum moss. Or you can propagate by cutting the stem in sections, each having an “eye” or internode. Place the sections in damp sand. It requires about 5 months to get 2-inch plants from eye cuttings, but it is an effective way to obtain greater multiplication.

Allophyton

The diminutive Allophyton, Mexican foxglove, has slender leaves, to 3 inches long, and flower stalks with clusters of fragrant, violet-purple bells. Seed production is abundant. Sow in January; keep in a 70-degree temperature.

Germination is likely to be slow, from 3 to 6 weeks. Prick out individual seedlings as the flat becomes crowded and plant them into thumb pots of loam, leafmold, and sand. It requires

54, 55, 56. Three of the principal steps in hybridizing an African violet are: (top left) clipping the anthers of the flower to release pollen; (top right) applying pollen to the stigma of the selected female parent, and (bottom) attaching an identification label to the developing seed pod. (Photographs by Author)

about 6 months from seed germination to salable plant. Older plants can be divided and grown in any type of soil.

Anthericum

The spider plant, Anthericum, sends out long stolons (runners ) with new plants on the tips. The little white blossoms are not showy. Anthericum grows from a tuberous root similar to an icicle radish. Propagate by plant division or by cutting off and rooting the runners. It will grow in almost any kind of soil, in a temperature range from 55 to 75 degrees, shade or sun, and needs little fertilizing.

Asarina

Flowering vines have a tremendous appeal. In Asarina (Mau-randia) we have a real treasure. This fast-growing vine with ivylike leaves bears pink or purple flowers like those of slipper gloxinias. If unable to purchase a plant or cuttings as a starter, order seeds from a specialty house. Plant the seeds any time of year in light loam, cover with glass, and place in 60- to 70-degree temperatures. Germination takes place in about 10 days. As your seedlings begin to crowd, thin them out and place them in 2-inch pots; here they will bloom in 4 to 5 months.

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Tropical foliage plants are enormously and deservedly popular. Many new homes are being constructed with built-in planter bins and unusual planters or combination planter-room-dividers, some with artificial lighting units. This-combined with the long-standing market for potted and bare-root foliage plants for old-fashioned window gardens, water planters, etc. -spells “ready money” for almost any kind of foliage house plant you may grow.

Some of the large foliage plants are popular for use on totem poles in pots or to grow in large plastic or wooden pots or tubs. Most foliage plants propagate rapidly and are easy to grow- a real asset when you are considering them as profit-making plants. Many indoor gardeners like flowering plants for their window gardens. You have plenty of leeway in the plants you choose to grow for these customers-from miniature gloxinias and African violets to shrub like flowering maple. This chapter is devoted to the better foliage and flowering plants-better for your customer because of their good performance and better for you because of their cultural reliability and built-in sales appeal.

Abutilon

The flowers of Abutilon, the flowering maple, look like paper bells and come in near-white, rose, and orange. You may have to purchase your first plant, and from this you can make fall and early winter cuttings. A soil of equal parts of loam, peatmoss, and sand seems to keep abutilon happy. During summer it can be grown under ordinary warm greenhouse conditions. In the winter the plants fare best in a cool greenhouse. Fall cuttings will be salable 3-inch plants by April or May.

Acanthacea

Three members of the Acanthacea family make good material for small pots. Beloperone guttata, the shrimp plant, is usually a popular novelty. It has showy spikes of salmon-colored bracts; the flowers are of lesser interest. The plant needs a steady supply of moisture and grows best with regular liquid feeding.

Hypoestis sanguinolenta, the pink polka-dot plant, has dark green leaves dotted and splashed with a vivid shade of pink. The flowers are small and purple, borne on long-stemmed bracts. I know of no plant that is a faster propagator. Terminal cuttings struck in any media are ready for 2-inch pots within 3 weeks. Few dealers offer this plant, and it should prove an instant success as a sales item for counters or roadside markets.

Crossandra, another acanthacea relative, has waxy green leaves that are a perfect foil for the bracts of salmon-hued flowers. If you want to grow these plants in quantity, sow seeds in spring, in a flat of milled sphagnum. They germinate more speedily with bottom heat, but if you are unable to supply this place them in a 70-degree house and cover the planting with a pane of glass. Germination usually takes place in 2 to 3 weeks, although I have waited as long as 6 weeks for the last of a batch to show life. As the plants crowd, shift them to 2-inch pots. With twice-a-month feeding of liquid fertilizer, they will flower in these pots. It takes about 6 months from germination to flower, but the foliage is so attractive plants sell at 4 months without flowers.

All three should be pinched to prevent legginess. They can be propagated through cuttings at any time of year. Rooting is easily accomplished in sand, vermiculite, or sphagnum moss.

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Umbrella Plant (Cyperus alternifolius)

Green umbrella-like growth makes this plant most attractive. For your first year’s sales, obtain small plants and sell them retail. If you have leftovers you may want to grow one or two for specimen greenhouse or house plants. Transplant them to a size larger pot.

You can propagate these by sowing seeds in a propagating case, giving them plenty of moisture and bottom (cable) heat of about 70 degrees, or through root divisions of the older plants, taken in March, and handled just like the seeds.

Vinca

Vinca major is perhaps the most commonly used vine in the window box, and it is tender. (Vinca minor or periwinkle is the popular, hardy, evergreen groundcover.) Vinca majors small variegated leaves on slender stems make it a pretty plant to trail over the edges of a box.

Since it usually takes a full year to grow salable plants from cuttings, it is better to purchase rooted cuttings, about a month before the beginning of spring sales. Pot them up in 2-inch pots, grow them in the warm house, and keep the soil thoroughly moist at all times.

There are a few improved forms with somewhat deeper variegations than the species major. These are listed as “highly colored,” “richly variegated,” or “improved” varieties.

Leaf loss may be due to a too high temperature and lack of water.

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Pandanus

Here’s another plant which doubles for window box and indoor garden. The green foliage is bordered or striped with white or yellow. As a starter, buy un-rooted cuttings and root them in flats of light soil mixture at 65 degrees F. When they are rooted, in about 3 weeks, pot in 3-inch pots. Plants started in March are ready for later spring sales.

Thunbergia

Although generally reserved for greenhouse decoration, thunbergia makes a good trailer for the window box. Its flowers, produced freely throughout the summer, are white, cream, orange red, and in shades of blue-purple.

Thunbergia, called clock vine, is easily propagated through cuttings or seed sown in the spring in the warm house. Pot up into 2-inch pots as soon as the cuttings or seedlings can be easily handled.

Wishbone Plant (Torenia)

Small gloxinia-like flowers in white and yellow, plain yellow, or blue and white, and tiny green leaves, plus a trailing habit when grown in partial shade, make the wishbone plant unusual material for the window box, planter, or hanging basket.

In warmer areas of the country, this one is handled as many northern gardeners handle pansies.

Sow the seeds in March in loose soil and grow in the warm house. Do not let seedlings dry out-they may not revive. As soon as you can handle them, perhaps mid-April, plant them in 3-inch pots of porous soil.

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Dracaena

Most gardeners think of dracaena as a house plant but it makes a good tough item for outdoor planting in summer. And you can always tell your customers it serves double duty. When the window box season has finished, it can be dug up, potted, and used as a house plant.

This is another item I believe is best purchased as small potted plants. You won’t want too many to start with-probably no more than 2 dozen-and they are low priced. D. fra-grans has green leaves but many varieties have striped and speckled foliage. There’s D. Massangeana with a wide golden stripe along the leaf midrib; D. Godseffiana, with flecks of white on its foliage; D. Goldieana has green and silver foliage; and D. Sanderianq, a slender plant, with glossy green leaves margined white. If you have plants left over, you can propagate more from tip, stem, or root cuttings struck in a propagating bed or case. They must be grown in the warm house.

Heliotrope

The dwarf form of heliotrope, with its heads of blue or white flowers, makes a wonderful plant for window box or planter (and is fine also for bedding or as an accent plant). Heliotrope is easily grown from cuttings taken in the fall. These are sold in pots the following spring. Grow the cuttings in any medium you prefer, in a warm house. As soon as they are well rooted you can plant them in 3-inch pots of greenhouse soil. When the plants reach the height you want, cut out the top so the plant will branch.

Hoya Carnosa

Often called the wax plant or Swedish ivy, this plant with its heavy, glossy, green or variegated leaves and huge clusters of waxy white or pink flowers makes a marvelous summer window box plant. And it, too, serves double duty. In the fall it can be brought into the house and used in a hanging basket or trained up the side of a window. It’s best to buy this one as rooted cuttings; pot them in rich soil, and grow them in the warm house. You probably won’t want to start out with more than twenty-five. If you keep some over and want them to flower in your greenhouse, do not take tip cuttings. The blooms form on the tips and after the plants have flowered, they will produce a second-year flower crop on these same tips.

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Asparagus Fern (Asparagus plumosus)

These can be grown from seed but the seedlings are the victims of so many insect pests that it is better to purchase small plants in February and grow them on in the warm house for spring and early summer sales. Feathery green trailing growth, plus small white flowers which often produce small red fruits, make this a froth of green for the window box or planter. Here it is seldom bothered with

53. The year-in-year-out popularity of Pilea involucrata is undoubtedly partly due to its common name, Friendship Plant. The profit-minded grower will always keep an ample selection of such “bread and butter” house plants in stock. (Photograph by Author)

pests unless the season is exceptionally hot and dry, then it may become infested with red spider. If you have old plants left over, you can divide them with a sharp knife, potting up the pieces of long white tubers and foliage in 4-inch pots of greenhouse soil. They also make wonderful hanging basket plants for the patio or greenhouse.

Begonia

Nearly everyone knows the little wax begonia (B. semper-florens), with its shiny leaves and white, pink, or red flowers. You can purchase a large plant of the wax begonia and propagate most of your own stock through cuttings grown in the warm house, buy small potted plants for retail, or grow these fibrous-rooted begonias from seed. The procedure from seed is like that for most house plants.

Equally good for window boxes are the hanging basket types of tuberous-rooted begonias. The single or double flowers range from white and yellow through pink, salmon, and red.

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Tuberous Begonias

You can’t beat tuberous-rooted begonias for growing in shady areas of the terrace. It’s easy to see why they are called mocking-bird flower, for the blossoms come in shapes resembling roses, gardenias, camellias, and carnations. The colors are gorgeous, including pure white, all shades of yellow and orange, pink, rose, and red.

If this is your first year with tuberous begonias, you may want to start by offering mature tubers, started in pots. The tubers are reasonably priced-the domestics from California cost more than the imports, but they’re usually larger and firmer.

If your started tubers prove to be good sellers, then grow at least part of your next crop from seed. Sow the seed in February in a warm greenhouse, in a good seed-growing mixture (equal parts of loam, leafmold, and sand). Water the medium before sowing the seed and keep the planting moist by covering it with glass until the seedlings show-in 10 days to 2 weeks. Handle the seedlings as suggested for gloxinias from seed (page 228) and you’ll have plants for 4-inch pots in May.

Start tubers in February or March in sand or a mixture of sand and peatmoss. Plant with the hollow side up. Grow in a warm greenhouse, keeping the soil slightly moistened until growth shows. Pot up in late April or early May in 4-inch pots of good porous soil mixture.

Yarrow (Achillea)

Yarrow, with its ferny gray-green foliage and pretty little pompon flowers, makes an excellent terrace plant. It is tough and will thrive in conditions similar to those given sedums. The flowers make lovely long-lasting additions to arrangements.

These plants usually do not bloom until the second year from seed so it may be more profitable for you to purchase small plants and repot them.

For the Window Box, Hanging Basket, or Outdoor Planter

The popularity of hanging baskets, outdoor planter boxes, and window boxes makes it necessary that you should know a little about the type of plants your customers will want to purchase for use in these garden “areas.” Almost any of the small vines, or trailers Vinca ma\or, hoya, wandering Jew, trailing petunias, begonias, and ivy geranium will do beautifully. The upright geraniums often are depended upon to furnish the bulk of bloom for both types of planters. Most of the small bedding plants also are good.

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Stabilizing the rocks

To keep the rocks in place remove four to five inches of soil beneath each rock that you lay. Add a thin layer of gravel beneath the stone. This will keep your rocks and stones in place to ensure safety and stability.

Plant some trees and shrubs

Larger trees and shrubs provide structure for your new landscape. Once you have planted your trees and shrubs you can add smaller plants and flowers. Perennials are great to use with your rock landscape. They add visual beauty to your landscape as well as color. Add some river rock to fill in the gaps between your flowers. Use this in place of mulch to keep the hard landscape design going.

Final Touches

For the final touches to your rock landscaped area, add some hanging plants or vines around the yard. Have some green vines climbing up a railing or porch. This will incorporate a Tuscan feel to your landscape. Add in some creative stone features to your landscape as well. Statues are a great way to incorporate a stone feeling to your rock landscape.

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One good idea for any landscape design is to have a separate walkway to your home. It is not a good idea to have your guest walking up the driveway or on the grass when they are approaching your home. Besides you want a clean walkway to your home so that guests do bring in dirt and debris to your home.

You can stager rocks and slabs to create a great walkway to your home. One thing to remember is to make sure the rocks are secure and do not wiggle or move when you walk on them. Create bends and curves in your walkway to add design and style to your path.

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Many yards across the world have the same look and feel to them. They have green grass and trees and flowers around the house. This does not have to be the landscape plan for you and your home. There are many different ways to add rocks and stone to your yard adding style and beauty as well.

Spruce up your yards landscape

The first step in adding some spice to your yard is to remove the grass. If you do not use your lawn, then there is no point in keeping it. Use a shovel or tiller to break up the soil and get the rocks up out of the soil. If you are digging up the soil anyway make sure that you have the proper drainage for your plants and flowers. If you need to add the appropriate irrigation system do it now before you start planting.

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