Herself's Houseplants

Hypoestes

Episcia ‘Cleopatra’

Steve Rosenbaum is the nursery man who brought us the pink polka dotted plant. Once selling only out of his nursery you can now find his plants in HD and other stores of that type.

He prefers plants that have interesting foliage rather than blooms.

Leaf man’s top picks:
Fireworks Rex Begonia
Variegated Artillery Plant
Episcia
Hypoestes
Ornamental Peppers
Pereskia
Variegated St. Augustine

More information:
Meet the man behind the plants, Dallas Morning News

Variegated plants

Photo credits:
Thanks for the Episcia photo!

Thanks for the Hypoestes photo!

I love my carnivorous plants. Anything, new different or odd in the world of plants catches my eye. This story is old but worth repeating.

Botanists at the Botanical Gardens in Lyon found a partially digested mouse in the pitcher of a carnivorous plant. Normally these plants stick to insects. This is the first proof they also can and will eat mammals.

I have one similar to this plant. I wonder if I feed it well, do you think it will start taking care of the squirrels over running the yard?

For more information:

Harvard Gazette: Snaring secrets of the Venus flytrap
Plant eats mouse – french cheese safe

And on this site:
Mirco terrariums with carnivorous plants
Nepenthes ‘Miranda’
Carnivorous Plants
Slime used to trap insects

The next time you venture into your garden armed with plants, consider who you place next to whom. It turns out that the docile garden plant isn’t as passive as widely assumed, at least not with strangers. Researchers at McMaster University have found that plants get fiercely competitive when forced to share their pot with strangers of the same species, but they’re accommodating when potted with their siblings.

Plants recognize their siblings, biologists discover

More information:
Plants know their relatives and like them

This is not a plant I’ve grown indoors myself but I ran across an interesting news story and it caught my interest.

Primrose has been grown by English indoor gardeners since 1908 when a missionary found it growing wild in a rice paddy and brought the plant back with him.

Today primrose flowers can be found in thousands of colors and combinations of colors. It is an easy to grow plant indoors. Give it a bright, drafty window and water when the top of the soil is dry about a half inch down. Do not get water on the leaves, water from the bottom, water can spot the leaves if it is too cold.

Dead head primrose to keep it blooming frequently. To dead head a plant remove the flowers and stalks with no more blooms coming as soon as they begin to fade.

If your primrose is not blooming, give it more light.

Watch for mealy bugs.

Thanks for the photo!