vibrant crotons

This is my favorite houseplant.

It’s a woody and erect perennial, bushy, compact with variegated coloring. Exposure to bright light intensifies colors. Full sunlight is needed but not the oppressive summer heat that might discolor and burn the leaves. Over-watering or too low temperatures or low light might cause leaves to wilt and fall off. Houseplants need better management in terms of light and water. Fertilize once a month and lightly with a balanced soluble food easily available in markets these days. Autumn and spring are a good time to prune and cut back on height.

Beware of mealy bugs (tiny white bugs) and spider webs that are some of the more common pests. Remove infested leaves and spray water soluble pesticide on the plant.

Photo Source: Web

pencil sticks on fire!!

Euphorbia tirucalli is popularly known as pencil tree, milkbush, finger tree, red pencil tree, sticks on fire. The Pencil tree makes a dramatic plant for containers. It grows with single or multiple trunks that have a tangle of light green, pencil thick, succulent branches. The tips of these branches are of a beautiful orange color. This plant must be grown in full sun, therefore if you want the good color, it’s the solar power. The color tends to fade in the summer, and becomes redder in the winter. The small leaves are inconspicuous and soon drop. The tree can be trained and shaped to grow in any pattern that you may like. It can be propagated by cuttings. They take a little while to acclimatize and when they do, they show robust growth. It needs to be watered only when dry since it’s drought tolerant and hardy and thrives in the driest atmosphere with ordinary soil, water, and feeding.

Note: The milky sap that it oozes when damaged or cut may cause skin rash, itching and general discomfort.

Welcome to frangipani

Plumeria or Frangipani is popularly known as “Temple Tree” or “Champa” in India, and grow to be large flowering trees. They can be grown in containers since it’s very adaptive and you can control the size of your plant by the size of container you choose for it. Plumerias love full sun, water and fertilizer to thrive.

You can grow Plumeria from cuttings, usually a foot in length. Apply rooting hormone to the base of the cutting and plant it good three inches into a pot with well-draining soil. Wet thoroughly, do not water again until you have 2-3 well formed leaves. It will take about a month for the cutting to root. Until then, the soil needs to be kept slightly moist. The cuttings need a green-house environment to emerge faster. A pink plumeria cutting that we planted, showed signs of growth after four months, so each type of cutting will have its own growing characteristics and you have to patient with them. At this stage and beyond, watering should be such that the soil never gets soggy and the soil should be a well-draining one.

The secret to lot of blooms is a lot of branching. Each tip on the tree produces a flower stock that in turn causes it to create multiple branches on each tip. I recommend fertilizer high in phosphorous that will promote this flowering/branching process. A water soluble fertilizer feed every other week will work wonders. Plumeria begin to go dormant in autumn and all through winter. You may stop fertilizer feeding around September until spring. Prune the fine roots every spring, or re-pot if you think the plant needs space to expand. In case you don’t re-pot, I’d suggest you remove some top soil and add fresh soil mix to refresh the plant.

This spring, all our plumerias have been kind to us. We’ve seen a beautiful sweet-smelling bloom, the ones you see in pictures. By the way, did you know champa flowers have no nectar and simply fool their pollinators?

the mint express

Mint is a great kitchen window sil plant as long as it meets some sunlight and is well-watered. Mint has roots which can be broken off and placed either directly in the ground or in pots. It prefers partial shade and water retentive soil and little maintenance is needed. A twice yearly feeding with bonemeal will keep it happy. Keep using its twigs and leaves in your cooking and soon it’ll swell and fill the pot. Given half a chance, it has the promise to take over a garden. Summer is a good time to try, bring mint seedlings and get going. Coriander could be the next to follow your mint success.

It's raining lilies!

Rain lilies that you see here in yellow and pink are autumn blooms, lasts for a day and flourishes throughout the rainy season, especially after heavy showers. Soon after flowering, the heads brown and dry up and these are the seed pods. You can harvest the seed pods, break them open and find black flakes. These flakes can be sowed immediately in a slightly moist environment for the seeds to germinate. I have both the yellow and pink ones planted in a shallow rectangular container that I shift around for display. My pink ones surprised me with a bloom this spring. Since I forgot to take snaps, I’ve put up pictures from the web for your ease. There are white rain lilies too, though I’m yet to lay my hands on them.

Where the lilies bloom...

These red lilies were a part of my spring bloom early this year.

Growing lilies in containers brightens up the garden and provides an attractive display for one season, remaining unnoticed for the rest of the year. With careful planning, the bulbs may be lifted after flowering and replanted each year to make room for other seasonal plants in limited spaces. The bought or stored bulbs of the lilies are planted in late summer or early autumn to be ready for display in spring. The bulbs are planted in free- draining fresh compost to avoid water-logging or the bulbs may rot. They are planted at twice their own depth and one bulb’s width apart with the growing tip facing the top. Avoid over crowding bulbs in a pot. Once planted, the bulbs in containers should not be allowed to dry out when in growth and should be fed regularly in 2-3 weeks with high potash low nitrogen fertilizer to boost flowering.

When foliage leaves begin to turn yellow, usually a month after flowering, gently lift the bulbs, clean off the soil, and dead and dry flakes. Cut the drying foliage, leave it overnight to dry, dust them with fungicide and store them in clean labelled paper bags in a cool and dry place in summer. Alternatively after flowering, the bulbs may remain in the pot, kept moist and shifted to a shaded place to rest till early autumn.