Anthurium no. 0501 "Freddie Prinze Charming" / Question for the Hive Mind / New Plant

I have news and a question, so let's zip through the critique of Freddie as quickly as possible:

Freddie's pink/pink, which is boring, but still maybe worth a second look, since he appears to be more thrips-resistant than average, and is much more resistant than his siblings. This is particularly the case with the spathes,

but the leaves are less terrible than usual as well.

Don't know if this will be enough to keep him around over the long-term, but he'll survive the next purge or two.

The news: for reasons I may or may not ever explain, I've bought a new houseplant book last week, and in the course of reading it to determine whether I approve of it or not, the bit about calla lilies (Zantedeschia cvv.) jumped out at me. I've long admired Zantedeschias, but had been under the impression that they wouldn't be good plants for me to try, because of the dormancy period and general fussiness, so I've never attempted it, but the author of the new book is very enthusiastic and encouraging about them. And I've been doing okay with a few winter-dormant plants lately (Amorphophallus,¹ Eucodonia), so when I saw one I liked at the ex-job last Friday, I went ahead and bought it.

Since the purchase, though, I've noticed a few things that make me wonder whether this was a bad idea. First, the author of the book is pretty enthusiastic and encouraging about everything. As far as I'm concerned, it's irresponsible to suggest that anyone grow Hedera helix indoors, and recommending Selaginella or (oh my goodness) junipers (!) is criminally so, so I probably should not have trusted the author's judgment on this to the degree I did.

On-line advice about growing Zantedeschia indoors comes from sources I consider questionable as well, but they can't agree on whether it's a good idea: advice ranges from yes, it'll live for years and produce breathtaking long-lived blooms every time you sneeze, they're wonderful, go for it to it's absolutely not worth the trouble, throw it in the garbage when it goes dormant.

So I'm looking for advice from people who have actually grown Zantedeschia before. Could you overwinter one and get it to resprout in the spring? What about reblooming? Will it work if they're indoors all year, or do they need to be outside during the summer? Was your plant(s) prone to pests?² Rot? If it's dead, what killed it? Etc.

Whether it's a permanent resident or not, it's lovely. I just need to know how low to set my expectations.

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¹ Though I'm beginning to worry about the Amorphophallus bulbs now. I dumped them out of the pots a couple months ago to divide them, and there were five bulbs total, so I gave them each a pot of its own and have had them outside for a while, figuring that the heat would encourage them to get moving, but we're about a week late now, so I'm worried that they've all rotted.
² My plant, unfortunately, has spider mites or thrips or both, because it did not occur to me to check inside the flower until I'd already brought the plant in the house. I have some optimism that it might be possible to end this with frequent soapy-water sprays, since the infestation appears to be pretty small and isolated to the bloom.
Then I remember how frequently I've been optimistic about thrips before, and how that optimism has never not even once been justified, and . . . well, you know.

Et tu, Kew?

Are the "Zantedeschias" featured in this post at Talking Plants actually dyed Anthuriums? [Yes. The post has since been corrected to Anthurium. -Mr. S.] And shouldn't the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens know the difference? And why is Kew dyeing/painting plants in the first place? And why am I weeping, piteously, on the floor like a newborn baby?

Pretty picture: Zantedeschia NOID

So I was proofreading the lead-ban post Monday night when it hit me -- I was sick of reading and thinking about lead. I mean, seriously, it's been like a solid week, and although I learned a lot in the process, and had fun, I loaded the page and was just like, I don't think I can do any more of this. So just forget I said anything, okay? It may come back at some point later on: it's not unheard of for me to shelve a post for months, then dust it off and publish it.¹

If you're all disappointed because, damn it, you were looking forward to reading about lead contamination, I recommend Root Simple, who recently got their soil tested for lead, with depressing results. (Subsequent testing produced a happier number.) RS has decided to make a theme week out of it, which just happens to coincide with National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, so there should be all kinds of exciting lead-related information over there, which as a bonus will probably be more relevant to PATSP readers anyway, since it has more to do with plants and gardening.

Zantedeschia NOID. It's yellow.
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¹ See: Work-related: everybody looks bad;
Mr_Subjunctive Explains Modern Retail Horticulture to a Time-Traveller From the Year 1860

The One About Plant Theft

Sheba and I stopped to admire and photograph this Zantedeschia outside an insurance office in town when the agent inside saw us and came out to say hi. We'd met her before, on a walk, so this was cool. I explained my presence as being because of the Zantedeschia, and she said something to the effect of, yeah, we used to have two pots this size, both with callas in them, but somebody stole one of them so now there's just this one.

The Zantedeschia in question.
Oh. Well it's a very nice wait a minute did you say somebody stole one?

Yup. The theory was that it may have been someone in town for a funeral (there's a funeral home right across the street from the insurance office), because it didn't seem plausible to her that someone who lived in town would do this. I mean, it's a small place: someone would know.

Well, maybe. But it wouldn't surprise me if it were someone in town.

This is not the first such story I've heard from around here. One of the people I worked with at the garden center sold daylilies and hostas (among, possibly, other things) from her home as a side business, and on multiple occasions in 2008, she came home to find plants missing. It was a specific weird number, too, every time, like she came home and found she had 31 fewer plants than before. Presumably whoever was taking them could only fit 31 in their car/pickup/whatever. It was really upsetting her. It kind of upset me to hear about it.

Hemerocallis fulva, I think. Hers were probably much nicer than this.
For readers who are commencing a knee-jerk reaction about how this happened because of whatever your particular theory about What's Wrong With the Kids of Today is (people today don't respect their elders; they think everything's a video game; it's all been downhill since the Supreme Court took prayer out of schools; schools don't teach the subjunctive mood anymore, etc.), catch that knee. This has been going on for generations. People suck now, because people used to suck in the olden days:

A Chicago Daily Tribune article from June 1876 bemoaned a crime wave at a city park: "Rare plants and flowers were ruthlessly dug up from the hot-beds and other places, and the old gardener grew greatly annoyed, and scarcely knew how to catch the thieves," the paper reported. Even after a police stakeout, 10 "splendid geraniums" went missing.

In 1901, Hyde Park was up in arms over bandits who snipped blooms from bushes, and in 1909 six newly planted trees were illegally "wrenched from the soil" near Armour School. "People of the neighborhood are incensed over the latest depredation," the Daily Tribune reported.

(Source: Chicago Tribune)

Sadly, the more serious thefts are apparently usually the work of people who resell them to unscrupulous (I don't want to say "shady") landscapers, or at least that's the explanation I've seen on-line. Which makes sense: I can't imagine any real gardener taking plants from another gardener's yard without permission. And it would really only pay to steal large numbers of plants if you could "launder" them somehow. I mean, if someone plants 500 'Stella D'Oro' daylilies in their yard, three days after all the Stellas within a 30-mile radius disappeared, you know, people would figure it out.

But even if the problem is mostly organized theft for resale, that's not what happened here with the Zantedeschia. I mean, there was a matching plant right there next to it, and they didn't take that one. Sometimes people are just greedy, or lazy, or impulsive.

I suspect this is going to happen more often, as the economy gets more dire. I can't think of any particularly good ways of preventing it, either.

Pilea nummulariifolia. Keep reading to find out why this picture is here.
There's also the issue of sneaky theft: the people who leave the whole plant, in more or less the same condition, but take leaves, seeds, offsets, or whatever without asking anybody first. That's a whole different thing, and if you want to see a bunch of people all get really self-righteous and angry with one another about where to draw those lines, this thread at Garden Web will make your day. Though remember to un-roll your eyes regularly. Whatever side you're on, you're going to want to do some eye-rolling.

Personally? I'm not pure as the driven snow on this one. I do believe it's wrong to take leaves / seeds / offsets without asking, whether it's a big box store, a mom-and-pop nursery, someone's personal garden, whatever. But I've still done it. Possibly this makes me a hypocrite; I prefer to think of it as just error-prone.

I've also realized while writing this that I've conveniently forgotten some instances: when I started, I could only remember the three-inch Pilea nummulariifolia (CLARIFICATION: Normally "three-inch Pilea" would mean a whole plant in a three-inch pot; what I actually took was a single cutting about three inches long. Doesn't make it more moral, but just to clarify your mental image.) I took from a big box store. (Plant is wildly successful; I feel seriously guilty.) Then I remembered the Zamioculcas leaflets from the floor of a mom-and-pop. (Plants are moderately successful; I feel no guilt at all but still should have asked.) Then I remembered the Kalanchoe plantlet from a different mom-and-pop. (Plant was a total failure; I feel moderately guilty.) It's possible there are others.

I would have been mad, if I'd seen someone take these same things from the garden center when I worked there. I wouldn't walk into a bakery and take a bite out of a donut and then walk out without paying; I'm not sure why the situation seems different when it's a plant involved. Some of the people in the Garden Web trainwreck tried to defend it by saying stuff like well, you know, the plant was almost completely dead already, I was just saving some offsets that would have been thrown in the trash. To me, that sounds a lot like "but I took it at 5:30 PM, and the donut was going to be thrown out at 6 PM; therefore it's not stealing because shut up that's why."

So I dunno. I'm not looking for a confessional here, and I'm really not interested in everybody doing a lot of posturing about their personal moral code. We're all good people here (Well, except you there, in the back: you're kind of horrific.); we don't have to prove goodness to one another or convince everybody else that we're the most moralest, bestest person ever.

What interests me is that last question. Why would plants feel like an exception to the general don't-take-it-if-it's-not-yours rule, enough so that people would be at Garden Web defending something that is, at least technically, stealing? (Even, in some cases, arguing that they're practically doing the place a favor by taking stuff -- stuff which clearly has value to someone, because it has value to the person doing the arguing -- without paying for it?) I'm curious. What is it about plants? Or is it specific to plants?

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part XVII

In case you hadn't noticed, there's been an enormous jump in the population here at Casa del Subjunctivo (note to self: find a better name for the house) over the last week: I went from 567 on July 19th to 670 on July 27th. A few of these are new purchases, but the majority are divisions and cuttings. There are also some cuttings I'm not confident will work out, so I'm not counting them yet, but if and when they officially take, that might go up over 700. This may help to explain why I'm not doing more long, researchy posts, despite continually promising that I'm going to be. (The other reason is that I have a number of them started at once, some of which are proving to be really difficult.) I'm not lacking at all for subject matter, just for time, which oddly enough was also my excuse three months, one job, and 100 plants ago. I abjectly beg the readers' forgiveness and pledge to do better in the future.

Meanwhile, I will attempt to distract the reader with shiny, brightly-colored things:

(The previous transmitted light posts can be found here.)

Clivia miniata 'Aztec Gold.' As happens sometimes, the impressive thing here is not the details of the picture itself, but the fact that the picture exists at all: Clivia leaves are remarkably thick and opaque, and in order to get a transmitted light image out of one, you have to more or less set the leaf directly on top of a fluorescent bulb and photograph it that way. Which is what I did.

Variegated Vanilla planifolia. From a plant at the ex-job. I never decided whether I liked the Vanilla plants or not. They were weird, and kinda cool, but also not incredibly exciting. Also expensive.

Hosta cv. 'Summer Breeze.' This reminds me: I have a bunch of Hostas here at the new house that I could be photographing. I don't know cultivar names for them, but that really doesn't matter that much. I should go do that.

Vriesea splendens. Yes, I've done this plant before, but this is a new picture. I don't know what's not working for me, but I think I'm still trying to get a picture of V. splendens I like.

Yucca guatemalensis, variegated variety. (Still often called Y. elephantipes.) I saw a similar gray-variegated Yucca in the Quad Cities a while back that was interesting. The gray and green stripes were more strongly delineated on that one, so there was greater contrast. It wasn't $55 cool, which was the price they had on it, but it was still pretty cool. I'll post a picture sometime.

Zantedeschia NOID. Best picture of the batch, as far as I'm concerned, though there are flashier, more colorful pictures to follow. Come back to this one when you reach the end and tell me it's not the best.

Neoregelia NOID. This is another plant I've had trouble getting a decent transmitted light shot of. The red shading on the left of the picture is real, not an artifact of the photography.

Solenostemon scutellarioides 'Kingswood Torch.' I was originally very taken with 'Kingswood Torch,' though since the move, I've had trouble finding a bright enough spot for it, so now neither of us are happy. Maybe coleus and I aren't meant for one another after all. Long-time readers will be pleased to learn that the mutant with three-part symmetry is still maintaining the weird growth habit, though its growth also appears to be slow compared to the others.

Caladium NOID. This was some random plant from work that I happened to get a picture of. Turned out reasonably well, I suppose. Probably my second favorite of the batch.

Colocasia 'Black Magic.' One of the more interesting venation patterns I've seen, though I think this plant was sick or light-starved or something: it should be darker than this. The veins show up better on the lighter-colored leaves, though.

Pretty picture: Zantedeschia x 'Picasso'

Apologies in advance for whining (but isn't the calla lily in the picture pretty?), but I had a cold in early March, and as of about last Friday or Saturday, I have another one. Sore throat, runny nose, stuffy nose, fever, aches, etc. As I write this (Tuesday afternoon), I'm feeling like . . . like . . . well -- I feel bad (facility with simile is one of the first things to go, when I'm sick).

Anyway. So somewhere in the snot-dripping, fever-induced haze that was March, we had calla lilies. And one of them looked like this:


It was pretty. But then it sold. And now I'm going to take a nap.

Pretty picture: Zantedeschia NOID

There were a lot of calla lilies (Zantedeschia spp.) left over at work at the end of last summer, so at some point WCW pulled them out of the soil and cleaned them up, and then stuck them on a desk somewhere, where they were completely forgotten about until spring. Which was, apparently, exactly what they wanted, because they all made it through the winter just fine.

The problem with this is that nobody, apparently, ever found the time to identify which bulbs flowered which color, so WCW took them out of their pots not knowing how to sort them, and then when they got planted together again this spring, they just got randomly thrown together.


Now they've started to bloom, and it's not looking like there are any lucky pots that all have the same colors; everything wound up being a mishmash. I don't think this is going to hurt sales hugely, though. They're still pretty, and multiple varieties means, in theory, more continuous blooming. Maybe. It might be okay. Still wish we could have separated them, though.