Herself's Houseplants

I received an interesting question by email this week, someone wrote to ask if there was a list of plants preferring to be bottom watered as opposed to top watered.

Most people know that African Violets prefer bottom watering and that’s about it.  While I don’t know of a list of plants preferring bottom to top watering I can give you some rules of thumb:

Bottom water preferring plants:

- Plants that are tropical and prefer moist soil, including African voilets but any plant that prefers moist soil and warm temperatures.

- Plants that don’t like wet leaves, this is usually your warm weather tropicals and plants with fuzzy leaves, like Purple Passion/Purple Velvet plant.

- Bog plants including Venus flytraps, pitcher plants and other bog plants grown inside.

Top water preferring plants:

- Any plant planted in sand like cactus, the sand doesn’t wick up enough water from the bottom to water the plant.

- Any plant in bark, same as above, to bottom water a plant you need  a soil that will wick the water up.  So orchids in bark need water from the top.

Rising fertilizer prices have been effecting farmers and home gardeners all year.  Prices doubled then tripled in 2008.   Most of the rise in prices is due to the idiotic ethanol fiasco.  Another reason is that natural gas prices have been rising which is the main source of nitrogen in many fertilizers.  So you would think a company that makes organic fertilizers, would benefit from the rising market.  Instead one company California Liquid Fertilizer spiked its organic fertilizers with ammonium sulfate.

California Liquid Fertilizer claims to make organic fertilizer from fish and chicken waste and by products.  The rising price of gas would not have effected their costs, yet make it able for them to charge more keeping with current prices.  So it is difficult to understand why they would do such a stupid thing.

Many organic farms are now at risk of losing their organic status.

The California regulatory agency was informed of the problem by a whistleblower in 2004.

More information:
Organic Farms unknowingly used a synthetic fertilizer
Rising fertilizer prices causing quite a stink

Another, yet unamed organic fertilizer company is also under investigation.

Scale until recently was only a problem on my orchids. Lately down here in Houston it has become an outdoor problem as well. I wish it was as easy to fix on trees as it is on houseplants.

Scale is a group of insects that feed on plants. You’ll notice them on your houseplants as hard bumps about an 1/8″ to 1/16″ across and usually dark brown. They don’t move or look like bugs. Usually plants will have sticky areas along the leaves as well.

Scale can also be white and long, thin bumps. However, I’ve only seen these scales outside.

Scale insects suck the sap out of your plant.

Because of their protective shell the only time spray on insecticides help is when they are first born and crawling to the location where they will build a shell over themselves.

Luckily houseplants are small and I’ve found that placing the infected plant in the sink, washing the leaves with soapy water ( ~ 1 tablespoon dish soap to a gallon of water ) will remove all the scale.

I then follow up with an insecticidial oil spray.

More information:
Scale Insects
Keys to scale insects ( photos of various kinds of scale for identification )

Growing orchids in glass containers is a nice way to modernize your display.

If you have orchids that are young or do not get large you can plant them in large glass containers. I have some planted in sphagnum moss, some in regular potting soil, others in bark.

The trick is to keep the roots moist with out letting water collect at the bottom of the container. And that is more difficult than it sounds.

I have a spray bottle with 10% the regular dose of fertilizer and water. When the roots stop looking green or the planting medium feels dry, I spray the plants until the roots and media are damp. I find that’s about twice a week in the winter when the house is dry. I spray them about once a week in the summer when it’s much more humid in here.