Archive for July, 2007
Who finds the plants the stores sell?
Even as an elementary schooler, Rick Schoellhorn had an eye for other people’s plants. . .
Decades later, Schoellhorn, 49, no longer has to break the law to indulge his lust for new and interesting flora. For the past two years, he has been paid to rove the world as director of new products for Proven Winners, one of North America’s leading brands of flowering plants. . . .
That puts the Alachua resident in the latest generation of a centuries-long line of plant hunters whose roving eye and wanderlust brought to gardeners thousands of plants. These once-exotic newcomers now are garden staples.
Plant finders of old, such as Joseph Banks, Reginald Farrer and E.H. Wilson, whose names often are attached to the plants they found, used to haul their Wardian cases on years-long trips in the name of scientific discovery. . .
And for 2008?
“We have a great new cuphea called Totally Tempted, which is totally crimson with a very compact branch habit and is great in containers,” Schoellhorn says.
He calls agastaches, with their scented foliage and wonderful arching flower spikes, “an amazing family,” and says Proven Winners has two new ones coming out, one with pink flowers, the other with orchid blooms. . .
More Information:
The plant hunter
Proven Winners
Today is take your house plant for a walk day
Who knew? July 27th i ‘Take your houseplants for a walk day’
More information:
Emotions Greeting Cards – Take your houseplant for a walk day
Wellcat – Take your houseplants for a walk day
Coffee as a fertilizer
Coffee is high in nitrogen(~2%) which makes it a good fertilizer for plants indoors and out. Used coffee grounds from your coffee pot filter also contain potassium ( >1%), phosphorous (~.3%) and other trace elements.
You can mix some grounds into the dirt when you repot your house plants. Or you can sprinkle some used grounds on the top of the soil of your house plants. Use them sparingly. The nitrogen is released quickly, not over time, and you do not wish to give your house plants fertilizer burn.
Plants that prefer acidic environments especially like to have some coffee grounds added. Also foliage plants ( non-flowering) do very well with coffee grounds.
It is better to let them dry out before adding them to your plants. If they are put on too thick while wet they can mold.
More information:
Coffee grounds for compost and fertilizer
You can make your own fertilizers
Rare Ghost Orchid Found
Two visitors looking for owls on Saturday spotted the endangered orchid growing about 45 feet off the ground in a tree at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples. The orchid, featured in the nonfiction book “The Orchid Thief” and the fictional movie spinoff “Adaptation,” is about 150 feet from the sanctuary’s boardwalk and can be seen only with binoculars and good lighting.The orchid, which blooms for about two weeks, has nine flowers, triple the usual number. It is not clear how long this ghost orchid has been blooming.
The Ghost orchid is an epiphyte ( air plant ) which roots itself on trees in the Florida everglades. They are very rare and an endangered species. The orchid has no stem and the leaves are no more than scales on the roots. It blooms late summer with 1 to 10 blossoms but more than one or two blooms is uncommon. The flower is about as large as your hand. Normally they are found about 20′ up a tree. This one was found over 100′ high by some bird watchers looking for owls. The tree on which it is growing is about 500 years old.
The only insect able to pollinate this orchid is the giant sphinx moth.
More information:
Rare Ghost Orchid Found in Florida
The News-Press.com, Environment, Rare ghost orchid found in Collier sanctuary
Giant Sphinx Moth image from Wiki
Orchid photo from National Park Service
