Houseplants to Grow or Give on the Holidays

Houseplants are great any time of the year, but the holiday season gives us an opportunity to buy a plant to decorate a corner of the home or office. Commercial plant growers and garden retailers realize that the allure of a green or flowering plant this time of year is too much to resist. A handful of houseplants make popular gift ideas for gardeners and party hosts, because they're affordable and considered disposable after the holidays. With some knowledge you can select a good houseplant for yourself or one you can give as a gift to a gardener. Below are some of the more popular holiday houseplant options and some information on how to grow and care for them.

"Christmas Cactus" Blooms, Care and Identification

November is the time of year we start to complain about how early Christmas music and decorations show up all around us. In the indoor garden it is the time when gardener's thoughts turn to Christmas & "Thanksgiving Cactus" blooms, or why your Holiday Cactus is not blooming. If your "Christmas Cactus" is setting buds or blooms right now, you may not have a true "Christmas Cactus" at all. So, how do you know which of the Schlumbergera you're growing? How do you make your "Christmas Cactus" bloom? And Can you grow more plants from cuttings of your "Christmas Cactus?"

Watering Houseplants Part 2: Botanicalls

In my previous entry, Watering Houseplants Part 1: Pick Them Up, I mentioned moisture meters that you can buy to help you determine when your houseplants need water. Some very forward thinking NYU college students have devised a system with a sensor that can tell when your houseplants need water or light and call your phone to let you know. For years indoor gardeners have been talking to their houseplants but now they can actually talk back.

House Plants Get Sunburn

Just like people and pets house plants can get sunburned too. This is something that many house plant owners and enthusiasts may not realize or think about often. Most of the time we find ourself finding ways to expose our plants to more sun in order to have healthy house plants. I've been known to move a plant around a room as the sun moves across the sky to keep as much light as possible shining on it. So the idea of a plant getting too much light is not something that is always on my mind especially during the winter.

But I was reminded of the fact that there is such a thing as too much light yesterday when I was watering a cactus a friend had given me. I went to remove the plant from the shelf and when I turned it around the side of the plant facing the window was a whitish yellow. In the course of two sunny days this sun loving cacti received enough light to cause a small amount of damage.

If you've been growing your plants indoors or under lights make sure to get them acclimated to the sun. If your indoor garden sits in a window consider using sheer blinds or matchstick blinds during the first few weeks of spring to filter the sun that will be more intense than it was during the winter, until they become accustomed. Don't forget to acclimate them to the outdoor sun too if you let your house plants spend the summer outdoors.

Choosing Healthy Houseplants

I got a recent e-mail from a reader asking me what to look for when shopping for healthy houseplants. I've decided to post the response here in the hopes that what I do can be of use to someone else.

Houseplants can be bought in a variety of places now and I'm not above picking one up in a retail setting outside of a greenhouse. I've purchased houseplants from drug stores (oddly enough Cacti & Succulents), garden centers, greenhouses and even from a street peddler. Houseplants are the same the difference is in the care that they are receiving and the conditions they are being housed in.

Adenium Obesum Care

Adenium Obesum, also known as Desert Rose, is native to Eastern Africa and Northern Arabia. They like full sun and are very heat tolerant. In the ground it can grow anywhere from 6-12 feet tall, it produces very attractive flowers and it is a popular plant among cacti and succulent collectors for it's unusual trunk.

Amaryllis Pollination

On my other blog I've been posting little gardening tips and tricks and I originally posted this one there but I figured I'd post it here too for visitors who may be looking for information on propagating their Amaryllis bulbs. I started doing it last year and found it to be very easy to do and now have a few seedlings of crosses that I made. But if you only have one Amaryllis you can still propagate it because many will accept their own pollen. I do it one of two ways: