House Plants

Welcome to my home. 

This is one of my three clusters of house plants. In doing research for this post I found some studies that surprised me. The presence of plants has a measurable effect on the happiness and well-being of people. Whether the study involved interacting with plants or being in a room with plants, the effects were measurable even weeks after the initial experience took place. Plants make us feel better. I know that every time I look toward my wall of plants I feel joy, but I never thought science would back me up on this.

Even Meecho gravitates towards the plants

What I expected to find from my research was that plants purify the air. Again, surprise! The science on plants as air purifiers is inconclusive. They do have an effect in laboratory settings, but our homes circulate air so rapidly that their effect in purification might be minimal. Plants do emit humidity, which is good during a Canadian winter. With the house closed off and the heating on, this place can get very dry. I keep adding more plants to protect my cats from getting static electricity shocks to their noses. 

You'll find a million lists of the "9 Most Unkillable Plants" or the "5 Best Air Purifying Plants", so what I wanted to say was what you won't find anyone else saying: You don't have to spend money to get a wall of plants like mine! Plants want to live! They want to grow in all of the spaces. Sure, there will be plant deaths because you over watered one or put a shade loving plant in full sunlight, but with trial and error you can fill your space with plants for minimal investment. Here is how:

1. Get plants. Plants are easy to obtain for free. If you see a plant with branches or vines, just snap a bit off the end of a branch (three inches is enough to work with). When you get home cut the wound open again (as it will have dried out), remove the bottom leaves, and place in a glass of water. Refresh the water after a week and after a couple weeks the plant part will likely be growing roots in that water. 

 All but three of my house plants were propagated from plants of friends, family, fellow gardening club members, a cheeky snip of a plant in a restaurant, or grown from seeds from grocery store-bought fruit.

2. Put them in pots. You can now plant in a pot with soil, or a soilless mix. All of my plant pots were picked up from the side of the road on garbage day, or a friend or co-worker offered them to me when they were cleaning out their garage.The houseplant potting soil is the one of two purchases I have ever made for my house plants (the other being a water-solluble fertiliser but a lot of people don't bother with this). A huge bag of soil mix cost me $9 and I'm not even halfway through using it. 

3. Water. The most common cause of houseplant death is over-watering. A good way to prevent over-watering is to let the plants exhibit signs of wilting. This can trigger flowering in plants that flower. With practice you'll get comfortable with ignoring your plants until they show you stress signs. If a plant looks unhealthy but the soil is wet don't even think about giving it more water! If it looks unhealthy and the soil is dry, go ahead and water.

If you're not sure whether you can spot a healthy plant from an unhealthy plant, don't worry. Get a plant and through trial and error you will learn what it wants.

4. Light. This is pretty tricky. Plants want to be somewhere bright, but not be cooked in direct sunlight. Some like shade, or partial shade, or partial light, or full light. Frankly, they can be pretty picky. My solution to this is to choose a place for the plant and leave it there for 3 weeks. If it looks unhappy and the reason isn't over- or under-watering then I move the plant to a new location that receives either more or less light. Some kinds of plants are very picky and will die quickly. Others just stay stagnant and don't grow until they find the right spot. I have a lipstick plant that stayed the same size for a full year and just grew darker and darker in colour until a couple months ago I finally moved it to a place it likes. Now it is growing lovely bright green leaves and branches. We needed to have patience with each other but finally we can both be happy.

5. Propagate. Now that your plant is happy and growing, take cuttings from the ends of the branches and vines. Or if you have plants like Aloe Vera which make babies that grow from the roots, harvest these babies and put them in their own pot. Grow your army of plants and gift them to friends and family. 

Cover the world in plants!

Better when it's free

Varieties are important. Apples are a famous example that just because what you planted was a McIntosh seed, doesn't necessarily mean a McIntosh apple tree will grow. In fact, apple seeds are so variable you could plant ten seeds from the same apple tree and get different colours, flavours, and textures from each of the offspring.

Genetics are important in this respect. I do not want to spend time and money caring for a plum tree whose yields might be poor, disease prone, or bitter. I pay a premium to make sure that the genetic stock I have purchased will really be the legendary plumcot and not a random mutation.

However, there are times when genetics are less important. There are some flower species I have been keeping my eye on because they are very attractive for bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, etc. I do not want to grow them for profit, rather I want to grow them because I think Eden's Rise should be about more than pure food production (see previous post), it should also improve the condition of the soil it is on and provide refuge for wildlife displaced by the constant expansion of lawns and car parks. 

Some of the flower species I was looking into buying were already growing in my mother's garden. I noticed from their growth pattern that they propagated underground, a root from the mother plant travelled beneath the surface of the earth and pushed out a fresh plant a few inches away. I asked my mother if in the fall I could dig up some of the baby plants to transplant them in my garden and she happily agreed- some of these plants spread aggressively and need thinning out anyway. A single root from these plants cost $15 in Vesey's catalogue. 

When the phlox flowers died back they revealed dried out seed pods, and when I picked one and tipped it upside down 15 tiny seeds tumbled out. I did a quick google search and found that propagating from seed is not recommended for phlox as the seedling will likely revert to its more wild form- the colour would not be the same as the mother plant. As it happens, that is not important to me in this case! If the bees still love it, the wilder, the better! I folded a sheet of paper that was destined for recycling, taped the edges shut, went back outside and shook each group of seed pods so their seeds rained down into the recycled paper envelop. 

Amazing that a single root would have cost $15 and now I have what must be at least 100,000 seeds! 

Now I am addicted. I love all the lilies in my mom's garden so I have been collecting those seeds too- I might even make little Christmas gifts with them! 

I was up North this week and saw a beautiful flower growing out of the crack in a sidewalk. It happened to have some dried seed pods on one branch. I did some seed sorting in my motel room! 

As I walked past a mature asparagus stand, well, I snagged some ripe berries from a female plant to see if I can propagate some from seed.

When I told my best friend about my new found hobby of stealing the genetic offspring of flowers she told me her mother is way ahead of me. Apparently she would go as far as carrying pruning shears and a small hand saw with her when they visited friends' homes. If she saw a plant she wanted she didn't just take seeds that have genetic variation- she took a genetic copy!

I hope I inspire you to look in the flower beds of your neighbourhood and embrace the possibility that it doesn't take any money to garden. In fact, you don't even need your own yard. Take some seeds from one place and guerrilla garden some forgotten corner of your neighbourhood. If you can harvest 10,000 seeds from one plant, even just broadcasting them over depleted soil  runs the chance that one of those unique seeds has the genetic make-up to grow, survive, and breed on that bit of ground. And you have taken a small action toward beautifying and re-naturalising an unloved space.

Have a lovely day

A small weekly harvest from the day neutral strawberries