Maybe not entirely missing from retail. . . .

I've been on the lookout this spring for the plants from last fall/winter's Missing From retail series, just to see how absent they really are. For the most part, the plants I said were missing around here still are, but there have been a few sightings.

I guess Cyperus spp. have been around every year and I just wasn't paying attention until this one, because I've seen them in two stores so far, one of which was the ex-job. If they've got them this year, they must have had them in previous years.

Cyperus involucratus 'Baby Tut.'
I've considered buying a Cyperus, though so far I've managed to talk myself out of it, on the grounds that they'll die the first time they dry out. But there's a great "person" possibility for profile-writing, so I might do it anyway, just so I can say I have some actual experience with the plant and write the profile.

I've also seen some Eucomis bulbs, though at Costco, not any of the local garden centers. I'm not sure what that means. I've been very, very close to buying those, too, and the only thing that's stopped me has been that they were initially $12 for 9 plants, and I wasn't sure I wanted nine more of anything, particularly not nine more of a plant that I wasn't sure would be able to grow in the first place.

Costco also had Crinums, I think. Not at all interested in those.

The ex-job has Cobaea scandens seeds.

I don't think I'm particularly interested in Cobaea -- everybody made it sound like more trouble than it's worth, and please note the small print on the package ("10' - 70' tall;" the metric equivalent is 3-21 m) -- but nevertheless, they exist, relatively close by.

There have been plenty of Bougainvilleas around town this year; either they've gotten more popular lately, or I hadn't been paying close enough attention before. I doubt many of the customers buying them are intending to grow them indoors, though. (Ditto for Catharanthus, Pittosporum, Fuchsia, Euonymous, Limonium, Acorus, Acalypha, Pentas, Nicotiana, and Liriope, all of which I've seen at least once this year.)

Shrimp plants (Justicia spp. and a few other genera) are showing up all over the place. They've never been completely absent, but I'm seeing new species and new forms this year. (For example: I saw a topiary standard shrimp plant this year.) Manettia luteo-rubra is showing up a lot more too, for some reason.

I've seen quite a few Dyckias in Iowa this year, mostly D. 'Raspberry Ice,' which I think genuinely is a new thing. I'm pretty sure I would already have fifty of them, if they'd been available in Iowa before this. I haven't bought any, because I'm not entirely sure I can grow them still. The first one I had died more or less immediately, and the second one has both survived for a full year and grown substantially larger, but I still don't feel like we've really reached an understanding.

Dyckia no-name F2 hybrid of 'Burgundy Ice,' as of last September. It's substantially larger than this now.
Faucaria spp. are here and there, though I have zero interest in them. (Too closely related to stuff like Lithops and Fenestraria.) Most of the ones I've seen this year have been at Reha's, in Wellman, IA. Ditto for Gibasis geniculata: they're around, mostly at Reha's, and I have no interest.


Faucaria sp. (pic is from a previous year, though)
And then finally, the ex-job had a couple pots of Russelia equisetiformis the last time I was there. They were much too large to pose a serious temptation, never mind the question of whether Russelia could be successfully overwintered indoors in Iowa, but they're neat-looking plants, even when not in bloom.

Russelia equisetiformis.

Top 18 PATSP Posts of 2012

2012 wasn't my, the blog's, or the plant collection's best year. I spent basically the entire year saying that I had too many plants,¹ and trying to reduce the collection to a more manageable size, and somehow managed to gain plants anyway (919 at the beginning of 2012, 1029 at the end). And then the scalepocalypse. And then I started having problems with fungus, a problem which is ongoing.² And then the scale came back.³

Also saying these are the top 18 posts is sort of misleading in two different ways: five of them are basically all the same post, so it's closer to the top 14 posts. Also "top" doesn't really mean anything except that I liked how they turned out and think you should see them if you happened to miss them the first time. They're not necessarily the most-viewed or most-commented or anything like that. Anyway.


18. Pretty picture: Cattleya aclandiae (16 April 2012)


I just liked how the photo turned out, basically.


17. Random plant event: Sansevieria cylindrica (4 September 2012)

Well, it was a big deal. You don't even know.


16. Pretty picture: Phragmipedium Peruflora's Cirila Alca (22 November 2012)


Also just a nice photo.


15. Random plant event: Spathiphyllum (5 December 2012)

In which I propagate a plant I don't even really like, at a time when I'm actually trying to reduce the number of plants I have, because I've realized propagation is possible. I still feel all conflicted about this.


14. Pretty picture: Rhyncholaelia digbyana (30 November 2012)


In which I attempt to liven up a dull blog post with an incomplete screenplay.


13. Random plant event: Aglaonema 'Maria,' with special guest star (8 March 2012)


The debut of the peat-bog-in-the-basement idea.


12. Cribplants, yo. (28 November 2012)

In which my thugged-out ass realizes that Snoop Dogg is a mothafuckin genius.


11. Elsewhere on the Web: Did We Win Already? (29 January 2012)

The sellers of the blue dyed orchids said, about a year ago, that they were going to admit on the tags that their plants wouldn't re-bloom blue. I wonder if that actually happened. Somebody should check.


10. Random plant event: Clivia miniata 'Aztec Gold' (22 August 2012)

The rumors are true: Clivias actually can be induced to bloom. I was beginning to doubt.


9. The Very Slow and Occasionally Sticky Inferno (14 August 2012)

The scale outbreak depressed me. And led to all sorts of incidental badness. Which was also depressing. And is continuing to be depressing. And will likely be depressing in the future as well.


8. Pretty pictures: Masdevallia Sunset Jaguar 'Night Breed' (24 April 2012)


I really love this flower, though I'm unable to read the name without thinking about the "night cheese" joke on 30 Rock.⁴


7. Random plant event: Epiphyllum NOID (26 August 2012)

In which an Epiphyllum blooms in Iowa, and a family is brought together. (No, really.) Also there are many pictures.


2 to 6. Missing From Retail series
(Part 1, 25 November) (Part 2, 2 December) (Part 3, 8 December) (Part 4, 14 December) (Part 5, 20 December)

Sort of a weird choice, I guess, but it was nice to expand the horizons of the blog for a bit and talk about a new group of plants. Plus I learned some things about plants I was otherwise unfamiliar with.


1. The Brick Joke (16 January 2012)

And no, Pierson's Flower Shop and Greenhouses, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, never did contact me in response to the post, so I assume I'm still banned from the store. We never have occasion to go to Cedar Rapids anymore anyway (I'm sorry, Frontier! I miss you!), so this hasn't had much practical effect on my life. However, my initial feelings of well they kind of have a point and I understand why they might not want me there have had a year to . . . curdle.

And so now we have 2013. May I have less fungus and scale, fewer plants overall, and the same number of kidneys, next New Year's Day.⁵

-

¹ (Absolutely true, though!)
² The fungus story so far:
First I tried neem oil. That makes leafy Euphorbia and Pedilanthus types defoliate, and doesn't seem to have much lasting effect on the non-leafy stuff.
Then I tried spraying with basic copper sulfate in water, which seemed like the least nasty thing available for fungus control at the ex-job. Not only did that not help much, it clogged the sprayers almost immediately.
Then I asked for help from Cactus Jungle. They said hydrogen peroxide, so I've been doing that, but this doesn't seem to be helping either, especially since I can only do it every 14 days or so. And it makes the Pedilanthus defoliate.
The next thing to try is baking soda. That's not going to work either, but it's another thing I can spray inside the house that won't kill us all, so I'm going to try it anyway.
When baking soda has conclusively failed -- and it will -- only then am I going to allow myself to use an actual hardcore, mid-20th-century-type fungicide. I bought a bottle of chlorothalonil at the ex-job some time ago, then looked it up when I got home and kind of wished I'd bought something else, 'cause I don't want to use it in the house and it's too cold to use it outside.
If the chlorothalonil doesn't fix things -- and it's a polychlorinated benzene ring with two nitrile groups, so it ought to be able to kill everything -- I'm going to go back to the ex-job and buy some captan.
And if captan doesn't work either, I am going to burn the goddamned house down. THE MILDEW WILL NOT WIN.
³ (Truthfully, I'm depressed about all this. Probably going to take a hiatus for a while following today's post. I'd rather not think about plants any more than absolutely necessary right now. Plus, I have a bunch of plants in the basement that I need to dose with imidacloprid granules, and that's going to take some time.)
⁴ It's a throwaway gag where Liz Lemon is home by herself eating cheese. Getting the rights to use the song, even though it wasn't the whole song (or the right lyrics!), apparently cost the 30 Rock producers $40,000. That's some commitment to a joke, that is.
⁵ (For the record, I would also be okay with an increased number of kidneys, at least within reason.)

List: Missing From Retail, Part 5 of 5

The explanation and background for this post can be found here, at part 1. (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

So here we are at the end. It's been fun, right?

Russelia equisetiformis Photo by Eurico Zimbres, via Wikimedia Commons.
I have seen Russelia equisetiformis (firecracker plant, coral plant) for sale in Iowa once, maybe twice. The ex-job has had them. I don't know if they sold, or if they died really fast, but either way, they weren't around for very long. I have no idea what they'd be like to grow indoors, but they do get a lot bigger than I expected from the (mostly close-up) pictures in the books. I'd think providing adequate light would be a problem.

Salpiglossis sinuata cv. Photo by Hephaestos, via Wikimedia Commons.
I've never seen Salpiglossis cvv. (painted tongue) plants for sale, nor can I recall seeing the seeds anywhere. The seeds part could just be me not paying attention, but I know I would remember seeing the flowers.

The commenters at davesgarden.com remark a couple times on the plants' tendency to wilt suddenly for no apparent reason, so it could be that it's difficult for growers to maintain a healthy-looking stock. Where they are sold, they are apparently typically marketed as annuals, though I believe they are actually perennials if protected from cold (USDA zone 8-11).

I encountered one reference to Salpiglossis that suggested its unavailability is mostly a matter of fashion, not a matter of difficulty. Fern also claims that Salpiglossis has come "roaring back" into fashion recently. I can't say I've seen any evidence of that here in Iowa.

Schizanthus wisetonensis 'Angel Wings.'
While researching this post, I've had a tough time keeping Schizanthus cvv. (butterfly flower, poor man's orchid) distinct in my mind from Salpiglossis; the two names both begin and end with "s," are nearly the same length, and are alphabetically close to one another, so I guess my brain would like them to be the same plant. Having now seen several photos of different varieties of each, though, I believe I can finally tell them apart. If nothing else, there's a clue in the name: schizo- means "split," so that'd be the one with the split petals.

I've never seen Schizanthus around here either, though there are a number of websites referring to growing them from seed, or growing them indoors, so apparently this really is something that people do. I couldn't swear I've never seen seeds for sale.

They're typically sold as annuals, but in mild climates may be short-lived perennials, so maybe it's the "short-lived" part that's the problem? They also need a lot of sun, are slow to start from seed, and at least one site said they prefer cool, humid conditions. Any of those could be a problem; all of them together seems like it would definitively rule them out as indoor plants. And yet, there they are in the books (Crockett and Kramer) anyway.


Senecio confusus 'Sao Paulo.' My photo.
I've only seen Senecio confusus once or twice; the first time (photographed above) was at the ex-job, and I can't recall for sure whether there was a second time or not. Its identity may be somewhat in flux: I found some sites claiming that it had been changed to Pseudogynoxys chenopodioides. Plant List says that both Pseudogynoxys chenopodioides and S. confusus are accepted names for (I assume) different species, so I don't actually even know what plant we're talking about.

It's another vining plant, that has the potential to get big (vines to 10-12 feet / 3.0-3.7 m long), which is possibly the only reason one needs not to grow it in one's house. That said, it's apparently also really easy to propagate, so it could probably be restarted regularly, whenever it gets too large. It also needs a lot of light.


Solanum pseudocapsicum? My photo.
Solanum pseudocapsicum (Jerusalem cherry; winter cherry; various botanical synonyms including S. capsicastrum) has never interested me that much, even when I saw it in books, but while I was reading through them in preparation for these posts, I noticed that it seemed to come up quite a bit (Kramer, Crockett, Powell). I've only ever seen it at the ex-job. If I remember correctly, that only happened a couple times, and they dropped a lot of leaves shortly after arrival on both occasions.

The consensus at davesgarden.com is that they need cool bright conditions in the winter. They're possibly also not helped by their fairly plain appearance when not bearing fruit (though that doesn't stop people from growing Citrus), their appeal to bugs (not personally experienced, but that's the claim here) or the poisonous foliage and fruit.

Sonerila pulchella. Photo credited to Alexey Yakovlev, kind of obviously. Found via (and owned by?) TopTropicals.com. Used in compliance with the non-commercial use guidelines on this page.
Only the Kramer book mentioned Sonerila cvv. (sonerila), and there's remarkably little about them on-line either, so it's entirely possible that they're not missing from retail so much as not yet arrived in retail. I had to go through four pages of Google results to find a single mention of them as a cultivated plant, and that (WARNING: autoplay video/audio) wasn't really what you'd call informative. (Houseplantsguru.com, on page 5 of the Google results, covers most of the same information in a much less chaotic context, and page 6 gives us the French version, which I can't read but possibly some of you can.)

There's near-universal consensus that they're attractive plants (many of the Google results are links to sonerila drawings, paintings, or photography), so I have to assume that there's a problem with them being too slow, or too touchy, for mass production. They do apparently demand a lot of warmth and high humidity, if nothing else.

Stanhopea radiosa. Photo: Orchi. Found via Wikimedia Commons.
(I'm fairly certain that I've seen Stanhopea spp./cvv. (no common name?) on the blog of at least one person I follow, but I can't remember who, or where. If I could remember that, I'd link to you, so if you think you might be the person I'm remembering, say something in the comments.)

I've never seen a Stanhopea for sale around here, even from specialty sellers or at the orchid show. Why not? No clue: they're apparently cultivated all the time. The short life of the flowers (~3 days, per Wikipedia), need for cooler temperatures (according to this care sheet, anyway) and odd growth habit (the flower spikes typically grow down instead of up, requiring plants to be hung for best display, and necessitating the use of special pots with holes in the sides) might all be factors.

Trachelospermum jasminoides. Photo by Wouter Hagens, via Wikimedia Commons.
Trachelospermum jasminoides (confederate jasmine, star jasmine) doesn't seem to be sold around here, though some of the true jasmines (Jasminum spp.) are. Not sure why this would be: a quick look around the internet didn't turn up anything especially damning. They can get to be big, heavy plants, but they restart easily from cuttings, so that shouldn't be a problem, and unlike a lot of the plants on these lists, Trachelospermum doesn't appear to require a cool winter (though cool winters are apparently not a problem, either). And I can't even remember the last time I heard so many people gush so hard about a single plant. (Not that the davesgarden.com people are reliable gushers: they think Aspidistra elatior is a nice plant too.) So there's no huge, obvious reason why Trachelospermum wouldn't sell in Iowa. I might even be interested in a little one, if only to see why it's such a big deal.


Tolmiea menziesii. My photo.
I really, really tried with Tolmiea menziesii (piggyback plant, youth on age), but . . . no. Just no. At least some of my problem is that it's too warm in here -- they do prefer cool, humid air -- but I was never able to get watering right either.

It's not like they're even pretty; I'd gotten one because I'd been under the impression that they were fairly easy plants. They grew well in the greenhouse at work, so I figured they'd grow well for me too.

I do still see Tolmiea occasionally -- the ex-job has had large hanging baskets once or twice, and I'm pretty sure I've seen 4" plants at one other place in Iowa City as well -- but it's pretty rare. Fine by me.

Veltheimia bracteata 'Lemon Flame.' Photo by BotBln, via Wikimedia Commons.
Veltheimia cvv. (forest lily, cape lily, bush lily) do still get sold, if you know the right places. Unfortunately, none of those places seem to be in Eastern Iowa. V. bracteata is apparently a very nice houseplant, for people who can provide enough light, and who don't panic at a short summer dormancy. (Which rules me out, twice.)

The Bulb Maven attributes their disappearance to the whims of fashion,¹ rather than difficulty providing the right growing conditions. Could be, I suppose, though I have no memories of them ever being widely available.


As I noted, I'm mildly curious about Trachelospermum jasminoides, unless someone can provide a compelling reason for me not to be. Schizanthus or Stanhopea would be my wouldn't-it-be-cool-if plants, from this group, but I don't anticipate ever actually trying them.


Not pictured:

• Rechsteineria cardinalis (cardinal flower): have never seen.
• Reinwardtia indica (syn. R. trigyna, yellow flax): have never seen.
• Rivinia humilis (pigeonberry, rouge plant): have never seen.
• Ruellia makoyana (monkey plant, Mexican wild petunia, trailing velvet plant): have never seen in person, though I see photos all over the place.
• Schizocentron elegans (creeping princess flower): have never seen.
• species Schlumbergeras: have never seen in person, though I'm pretty sure I've run into Schlumbergera gaertneri (now possibly Hatiora gaertneri) for sale a few times on the internet.
• Sprekelia formosissima (Aztec lily, Jacobean lily): have never seen, but I ran into a few sellers on-line while writing this.
• Streptosolen jamesonii (marmalade bush, orange browallia): have never seen.
• Tabernaemontana divaricata (crepe jasmine): have never seen for sale. No idea if I've ever seen them in person.
• Tetranema roseum (Mexican violet, Mexican foxglove): have never seen.
• Tetrapanax papyriferus (rice-paper plant): have never seen for sale, though I've seen it on blogs, Danger Garden in particular, so I know they're out there.
• Tibouchina semidecandra (princess flower, glory bush): have never seen.
• Tulbaghia fragrans (sweet garlic, pink agapanthus): have never seen.
• Vallota (apparently Cyrtanthus now; no common name?): have never seen.
• Zephyranthes candida (rain lily, zephyr lily, fairy lily): have never seen.

-

¹ (Also known as "plant obsolescence.")

List: Missing From Retail, Part 4 of 5

The explanation and background for this post can be found here, at part 1. (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 5)

Medinilla cv. My photo.
WCW said she'd tried Medinilla cvv. (rose grape, medinilla) indoors before, and it hadn't done that well for her, but I don't remember any details beyond that. I also know that they tend not to do that great in the ex-job's greenhouse in the long term,¹ though that hasn't stopped them from ordering them more than once.

When I googled Medinilla, I found a lot of photos of them indoors in containers, usually in pristinely clean and expensive-looking surroundings, accompanied by breathless, over-caffeinated ad copy about what wonderful, wonderful houseplants they are. So it's possible that we'll be seeing a lot more of them in the future. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Nandina domestica. Photo by KENPEI, via Wikimedia Commons.
I can't say I've ever had any strong urge to try growing Nandina domestica (heavenly bamboo, sacred bamboo), so I haven't been terribly bothered by not being able to find one. It's my understanding that they're not particularly beloved outdoor plants, though most of the objections raised at davesgarden.com have to do with their rapid spread and drought tolerance, both of which would be a positive indoors. ("Tacky-looking / cliched," "I think I'm allergic," "ecologically disastrous," and "poisonous" are also represented.)

Although Nandina is an FLEPPC Class I (has produced documented ecological damage) invasive plant, it's not illegal to produce it or sell it in Florida. Since there's no legal barrier, I expect that they're unavailable in the north due to a lack of demand.

Neomarica caerulea. Photo by Denis Conrado, via Wikimedia Commons.
Neomarica spp. (walking iris, apostle plant) are apparently mostly passalong plants, so there's no money in producing them commercially. I don't know what they're like to grow indoors, and I haven't personally seen anybody growing one, but by most accounts they're pretty easy. (I'm somewhat interested in getting a Neomarica, eventually, someday.)

Osmanthus fragrans. My photo.
When my Osmanthus fragrans (sweet olive, tea olive) first arrived, I had it in the house, hoping for ongoing blooming so we'd get to smell the flowers all the time,² but it didn't bloom. And then it got spider mites. So it spent the summer outside. It seemed to like that well enough, though it didn't grow very much, and it didn't rebloom out there either.

Then, after it came inside, it dropped a lot of the new leaves it had just grown. So we don't seem to be getting along, is kind of the upshot. Some googling brought up this page from the Missouri Botanical Garden, in which it is said "In St. Louis, grow in containers which must be overwintered indoors in bright cool locations."

Which probably explains it, 'cause mine's in a warm dim location. So I'll try to fix that and then get back to you.

None of this explains why I never see them for sale. (I'd think they would sell really well, given the fragrance.) This Garden Web thread suggests that Osmanthus might be another plant that would rather have an unheated sunporch than central heating.


Pandanus utilis. My photo, from the Quad Cities Botanical Center.
I feel like I pretty well covered the reasons why Pandanus spp. (screw pines) might not be more available in their profile, but in case you don't want to read it all: both Pandanus utilis and P. veitchii can get huge; both have sharp, unpleasant spines along the leaf margins and on the underside of the leaves along the midrib; P. veitchii is so easily propagated that it's probably a passalong. These all seem like perfectly good reasons why they might not be found in retail very often.³

I'm still trying to get a P. utilis of my own, though. Someday.

Phoenix roebelenii. Photo by Forest & Kim Starr, via Wikimedia Commons.
I've seen Phoenix roebelinii (pygmy date palm, miniature date palm) at the ex-job once, I think, when I first started working there, and I've run into them at Lowe's occasionally since then, but they're not easy to find around here. Something that isn't always obvious from their photos in the books is, they're full of extremely sharp, long (to at least 3.5 inches / 9 cm!) thorns, especially near the base of the fronds. Worse, when I started working there, the ex-job's Phoenix was displayed underneath a huge Ficus benjamina, which dropped leaves into it all the time. Much blood was shed before I learned that there was just no safe way to get the Ficus leaves out of the Phoenix pot, and decided to move the Phoenix instead.

The thorns are bad enough that I'd never actually want to own one myself, but even if I did, Phoenix also gets too large for me, "pygmy" date palm notwithstanding. It probably also needs more sun than I have. Those might also be factors for other people.

Pilea microphylla. My photo.
Nobody seems to grow Pilea microphylla (artillery plant) on purpose anymore, and I've only seen it deliberately sold once (and that was a strangely-colored variety). On the other hand, I still run into it in stores on a pretty regular basis: they're weedy, and hitchhike in the pots of more desirable plants.

I've grown it once; I pulled it out of some other plant's pot and gave it its own. That worked fine for several months, and then it suddenly collapsed. I have no idea why. (The timing and location were such that scale might have been a factor. I don't know.) I wasn't that crazy about it in the first place, so I haven't tried to replace it.

Pittosporum tobira. Photo by Piotrus, via Wikimedia Commons.
I don't find Pittosporum spp. (pittosporum, Japanese mock-orange) very interesting. Apparently the flowers smell nice, but the look of the plants, even the variegated ones, do nothing for me. But hey, some people juggle geese.

I gather Pittosporum also prefers cool temperatures during the winter, and is therefore probably another victim of changing home construction, though I'm not 100% sure on that. According to Monrovia, they're only cold-hardy to USDA zone 8, so you wouldn't think they'd want a lot of cold in the winter. I don't know.

Portea petropolitana. Photo by BotBln, via Wikimedia Commons.
Portea spp. (no common name)⁴ aren't particularly common in the houseplant books, granted, but the Powell book lists a whole bunch of bromeliads I've never seen for sale, and this is one of them, so Portea is kind of standing in for all those (which also include Bromelia, Catopsis, Nidularium, and Quesnelia). The photo above was the best one I found for showing the leaves and inflorescence at the same time, but doesn't do a particularly good job selling the plant overall: it might be clearer why Portea would be desirable from some of the photos of inflorescences. (P. alatisepala, P. kermesina, P. leptantha, P. petropolitana. Don't skip that last one; the colors are particularly interesting.)

The leaf margins are heavily spined, which might explain some of the problem with Porteas (though it doesn't look any worse than some of the Aechmeas or Neoregelias I've seen for sale). Beyond that, there's no obvious problem. Poking around with Google turned up some evidence that they may need a lot of sun, and some of them do get large. They are sold here and there on-line as outdoor plants for people in tropical climates, so it stands to reason that they could be put on trucks and shipped north as easily as anything else could. I'd be interested in a Portea someday, too.

Punica granatum. My (terrible) photo.
I've personally met a couple people who grew Punica granatum (pomegranate) indoors, and the ex-job was selling them the last time I was there, so Punica isn't missing from retail as much as just exceedingly rare. (That's the only time I can recall seeing them in retail.) Not sure why that is; by one of those people's accounts, it wasn't particularly difficult, though I don't know how long he'd had it.

The Missouri Botanical Garden suggests that the species is probably not that easy to keep indoors, but the variety P. granatum 'Nana' is better suited to use as a houseplant. The comments at davesgarden.com were all uniformly positive on 'Nana' as well, though it's not clear where they were all buying their plants.


I'm desperate to get a Pandanus utilis someday, even knowing that I don't have room for it. I could sort of understand why someone might want to own any of the others, too, but I'm only really interested in Pandanus, Neomarica, and Portea.


Not pictured:

• Miltoniopsis spp./cvv. (pansy orchid): have seen very occasionally, in orchid-specialist contexts.
• Myrtus communis (myrtle, true myrtle): have never seen.
• Nerine bowdenii (spider lily): have never seen. (Wikipedia suggests some of the reason could be because they respond badly to being moved.)
• Nicotiana (flowering tobacco): some cultivars seasonally available as annuals or as seeds, but I've never known anybody who was growing them year-round indoors.
• Nidularium (bromeliad): never seen.
• Olea europaea (olive): rarely seen, and super-expensive when they are seen.
• Pentas (pentas, star flower): seasonally available as annuals.
• Petrea volubilis (queen's wreath, sandpaper vine): never seen. (Images from Google show a huge, vining plant that I imagine doesn't stay contained for very long.)
• Philodendron hastatum (silver philodendron): have seen occasionally at the ex-job.
• Pleione formosana (Himalayan crocus, windowsill orchid): have never seen, though it's possible I've seen hybrids for sale at some point.
• Plumbago spp. (plumbago, leadwort): as outdoor perennials; never as houseplant.
• Primula (primrose, auricula, cowslip, oxlip): seasonally as temporary indoor plants.
• Quesnelia (bromeliad): never seen.

As with the other posts in this series, readers are encouraged to leave comments about their experiences with seeing, buying, or growing any of the above, or speculating on why I don't see them for sale (especially if your speculation conflicts with mine).

-

¹ From what I've seen, mostly what happens is that the leaves get burnt tips or margins, and then get torn. So maybe a humidity problem, or drought stress from underwatering?
² (previous Osmanthus post here)
³ There's also the matter of customers not buying them even when given the opportunity. Oh how I tried, but customers are not that into four-foot-wide (1.2 m) plants where every leaf has three rows of hooked spines pointing in different directions, no matter how easy you tell them the plant is to grow.
⁴ And no, this is not a misspelling of the better-known plant Protea.

List: Missing From Retail, Part 3 of 5

The explanation and background for this post can be found here, at part 1. (Part 2) (Part 4) (Part 5)

Gibasis geniculata. My photo.
Gibasis geniculata (Tahitian bridal veil), honestly, is kind of annoying, and I don't blame any retailer for not stocking it if they don't want to. We had a few hanging baskets of it at the ex-job when I started working there, and they were forever getting tangled in one another, or other plants. The stems broke easily but remained tangled, so unless we put a lot of very careful, nitpicky work into it, they'd always have dead stems running through the mass of foliage, which didn't look good. The flowers were fine, I guess, and it was actually a pretty easy plant to grow, but it was messy, inconvenient, and not nearly pretty enough to make up for the hassle.

Gloriosa rothschildiana. Photo by Jean-Jacques MILAN, originally posted to Wikimedia Commons.
Is the problem with Gloriosa spp. and cvv. (glory lily) that they're super-poisonous? Maybe. They're in a lot of the books, but I've never seen one for sale up here. Perhaps the growth habit is awkward: it's hard to tell from the photos I've seen (which are mostly close-ups of the flower, for obvious reasons). Maybe they don't flower reliably indoors. Maybe the United Nations is using their black helicopters to keep them out of the state of Iowa, because something-something one-world government.

I don't have any idea. It seems like if it had ever been a good idea to grow them in the house, it would probably still be a good idea to grow them in the house. And certainly the flowers are lovely. I'm baffled.

Grevillea robusta. Photo by Forest & Kim Starr, found via Wikipedia.
In each of the lists so far, there's been a Big Mystery plant, a plant that's widely described among houseplant books of a certain age, but has completely disappeared from the houseplant trade (at least in my personal experience). In the first list, it was Aucuba japonica, which turns out to be widely available, just not where I am or for the uses I would put it to. In the second, Geogenanthus poeppigii. My questions about that one were met with utter silence, so I conclude that either no one cares, or no one knows (perhaps because no one cares).

That plant for this list is Grevillea robusta (silk oak). Where did they all go? And why? Were there ever very many in the first place?

I know there are Grevilleas still being sold for outdoor use. Danger Garden grows a few of them (G. juniperina, G. lanigera, G. victoriae, etc.), and I'm pretty sure Far Out Flora has at least mentioned them once or twice as well. So it's not like the genus has suddenly gone extinct.

I've seen some references to G. robusta having skin-irritant properties similar to those of poison ivy, which could something to do with it. (The older books don't mention this, though.) Though that doesn't seem to be stopping anybody from growing them outdoors. Maybe they're another victim of the changing standards in new-home construction? If they can be grown outdoors in the Northwest U.S., that suggests that they probably don't mind cold too much. I don't know.


Haemanthus albiflos. Photo from a PATSP reader; addressed in this post.
Haemanthus albiflos (elephant's tongue, shaving-brush plant) and other Haemanthus spp. are probably not helped by their slow growth rates, but by most accounts H. albiflos is pretty easy to grow,¹ and the flowers may not be gorgeous but they're at least interesting. If there's a market for Philodendron hederaceum, I'd think there would be a market for Haemanthus.

The only guess I can come up with is that maybe it's not sold very often because it's a passalong?² That's how I wound up with mine; maybe that's how everybody gets them.


Heliconia psittacorum 'Bright Lights.' My photo.
I've seen Heliconia psittacorum 'Bright Lights' for sale a couple times at the ex-job, and I assume other Heliconia cvv. (lobster claw, false bird of paradise) are probably available further south. (The main appeal of H. psittacorum is, I think, that it's relatively small for a Heliconia; many of them get big.) Both I and WCW³ have tried them indoors, and neither of us was particularly satisfied. We both got spider mites; my plant also seemed to want more humid air than it was getting, and was either getting underwatered or overwatered but it would never tell me which.

So I wouldn't try this again, but it did do surprisingly well for several months after I first got it, so Heliconia might still work for some people. Even if it isn't a great choice for your average plant-buyer, the inflorescences can last for a long time, so I'd think retailers might still be able to display them profitably. I don't have any guesses as to why they don't.


I could find plenty of copyrighted photos of small container-grown plants, or I could find Creative Commons photos of full-grown adult outdoor plants, but I couldn't find any pictures showing a small containerized plant that I was legally able to reuse.
It is entirely possible that I see Howea forsteriana (kentia palm) for sale all the time and just don't realize it. I can't really distinguish between Chrysalidocarpus lutescens, Howea forsteriana, and Chamaedorea cataractum, in large part because I've never been able to directly compare all three. In fact, I've only actually seen Howea forsteriana tagged as Howea forsteriana once. This is despite several books' claims that they're either the best or second-best palm to have indoors. (Chamaedorea elegans generally being the other one.⁴)

The reason is that they germinate and grow so slowly that it's not really cost-effective for growers to produce them. People will buy the much faster-growing Ravenea rivularis (majesty palm) just as readily, so Ravenea can be sold for less than half the cost of Howea. Raveneas are also, of course, very poorly suited to indoor conditions, but the long-term fate of the plant is irrelevant to the growers (they already have your money either way), so they don't factor it in.

I don't know how to fix this situation. I can recommend that people ask for Howeas specifically, but I don't have first-hand experience that they're any better than Chrysalidocarpus or Chamaedorea, and I don't know how to tell the difference anyway. I could get first-hand experience, and learn how to tell the difference, if any producers ever sent them to the stores for me to look at, buy, and grow, but the producers can't do that because the consumers wouldn't buy them. The consumers might buy them, if only they knew that they wanted them. I could tell the consumers they wanted to buy them, if I were able to distinguish between the three species and had first-hand experience growing them. Wheeee!


Jatropha multifida. My photo, taken at the Quad City Botanical Center.
I've seen Jatropha podagrica (Buddha belly plant) at Wallace's once; we never got any Jatropha spp. at the ex-job, though they were on the availability lists occasionally. Pretty sure I've never seen Jatrophas for sale anywhere else, though the QCBC has J. multifida (coral plant, Guatemalan rhubarb), as you can see in the above photo, so I've at least seen the two most cultivated species.

I've never grown one personally; I understand they probably need more sun than I could offer. Other than that, I really don't have much to go on. As far as I can tell, temperature wouldn't be an issue. Maybe slow growth? Unappealing form?

Lachenalia aloides. Photo by BotBln, from Wikimedia Commons.
Holy crap, some Lachenalia spp./cvv. (no common name?) have some damn beautiful flowers. (There's a red one! And a turquoise-blooming one! And one with four-colored flowers!) And although one of the books which mentions Lachenalia has been in my possession for about a quarter-century, I had somehow never been consciously aware of them before now.

Now that I've noticed them, read up on them, and come to appreciate how pretty some of them are, I will have to forget them all again. Both books that mention Lachenalia agree that they need temperatures much colder than I'd ever be able to provide in the house (60-65F during the day, 40-45F at night). Which is a pretty obvious explanation for why I never see Lachenalia for sale.

Lapageria rosea. Photo credit: KENPEI, at Wikimedia Commons.
Lapageria rosea (Chilean bell flower) is another plant I know only from the Kramer book. Or almost, anyway -- Talking Plants did a post about Lapageria not too long ago as well, though he doesn't mention it being cultivated indoors.

Kramer calls it "a challenge," but doesn't include many specifics about the ways in which it might be challenging, and says it's "difficult to bloom," but also says "can tolerate abuse if necessary and still bloom." So no clues there. It's another climber, which is possibly significant: beyond that I don't even have a guess.

Manettia luteo-rubra. My photo.
I've seen Manettia luteo-rubra (firecracker plant, candy corn plant) for sale here as an outdoor annual, but not very often, and I didn't find them very impressive. I don't know of anyone who's tried to grow it indoors. The two books that mention it don't agree on the care it needs, though neither one makes it sound particularly difficult. Maybe it's just not interesting enough for people to care?


I understand Haemanthus is pretty easy indoors, and although I never did it personally, I'd bet Gibasis is very easy as well. I might be interested in Jatropha, in theory, even if I probably don't have the light it wants. And I would really like to try Howea at some point, if only to see what all the fuss is about, but it looks like the only way that's ever going to happen is if I start them myself from seed.


Not pictured:

• Hedychium gardnerianum (kahili ginger, ginger lily): have never seen.
• Hoya australis / bella (wax plants): I'm pretty sure I've seen H. bella around here occasionally; I don't recall H. australis, though.
• Ixia spp./cvv. (corn lily): have never seen.
• Ixora (West Indian jasmine, jungle geranium): the ex-job has them occasionally, I think. I have trouble distinguishing between Ixora and Pentas, for some reason, but I'm pretty sure they've had both.
• Justicia brandegeana and carnea (shrimp plants): I've seen J. brandegeana once at the ex-job; not sure if I've run into them elsewhere or not.
• Kohleria cvv. (kohleria): have never seen in retail. The ones I've tried to grow haven't done well.
• Limonium (sea lavender, statice): the ex-job had one once, as an outdoor annual (?), but I think that was the only time I've seen any for sale at all, much less as a houseplant.
• Liriope (lilyturf): sometimes available around here as an annual or tender perennial. One from the ex-job survived for me for a while indoors, but it never grew much, and spent its last year or so looking decidedly unhappy.
• Lycaste spp. (lycaste): have never seen.
• Malpighia coccigera (dwarf holly, miniature holly): may have seen as a faux bonsai, but the pictures that come up in Google don't look particularly familiar.
• Malvaviscus arboreus (turk's cap mallow, nodding hibiscus): have never seen.
• Masdevallia spp./cvv. (masdevallia): have seen at Orchids and Moore, the specialty orchid-seller in Iowa City, and possibly at the Quad Cities orchid shows (can't remember if any of those were for sale or not), but that's it.

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¹ I've only just gotten one myself, so I'll let you know eventually, I suppose.
² (A plant that is so easy to propagate that offsets or cuttings or whatever get distributed from gardener to gardener directly, without ever being part of the commercial trade.)
³ (Remember her? I haven't seen WCW in forever, sadly.)
⁴ Which has not been my experience -- my best palm has been either Chamaedorea metallica or Rhapis excelsa, depending on the criteria you want to use for "best." But that's off-topic.

List: Missing From Retail, Part 2 of 5

The explanation and background for this post can be found here, at part 1. (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5)

What other never-available plants do houseplant books try to get me excited about?

Camellia 'Sekidotaroan.' Photo by KENPEI, from Wikimedia Commons.
I know Camellia cvv. (camellia) are still out there, because I see them pretty regularly on the blogs of outdoor gardeners from the southern U.S. Less clear is whether they're growable indoors. The books say yes, but I've never seen them sold as such, and they're popular enough outdoor plants that I'd think there'd be an indoor market for them if it was at all possible.

Why would the books tease us like this? As commenters suggested in Part 1, it probably has to do with changes in new home construction: less drafty, no unheated sunporches, that sort of thing. There could be other, Camellia-specific things going on as well, but I'd bet that warmer, more energy-efficient homes explain a lot.


Caryota mitis. (My picture.)
There are several things about Caryota mitis (fishtail palm) that don't work so great indoors. They can get to be enormous,¹ they tend to be buggy (my first attempt ended abruptly due to scale; they're also appealing to spider mites), they're expensive when you do see one for sale,² and they need a lot of water.

However, I don't think any of those things are the reason why I don't see them for sale that often: I think the reason is that people don't like the ragged tips on the leaflets. I mean, that is how Caryotas are naturally supposed to be, but I bet people assume something is wrong with the plant and move on.

Cissus antarctica. Photo by Dinkum, released to public domain. Found via Wikimedia Commons.
I've never seen Cissus antarctica (kangaroo vine) in person, either for sale or in someone's home. Wikipedia provides a clue as to why: "It doesn't do well above 15°C, especially when exposed to central heating, which can cause the leaves to drop." It's not too hard to draw a line from warmer homes, to people having a tougher time growing them, to people buying fewer of them, to growers producing fewer of them, as with Camellia.

It's also probably relevant that C. antarctica isn't a particularly flashy plant. No variegation, no brightly-colored flowers, no fruit, not even a particularly interesting leaf shape (though I like it personally) or manageable growth habit.

Cobaea scandens. Photo by Michael Wolf, obtained via Wikimedia Commons.
Cobaea scandens (cup and saucer vine, cathedral bells) actually does have flashy flowers, and it's even weedy in New Zealand (according to Wikipedia), both things that ought to make it suitable for indoor cultivation. Also it is deliberately cultivated as an outdoor plant, so seeds are available. I mean, it's not like it's some super-rare thing that's only found in a seed bank in a single botanical garden somewhere. And yet, I'd never heard of until I bought the Kramer book a few weeks ago. Some of this, I'm sure, is just my natural adorable obliviousness asserting itself, but even so, it seems like a plant this unusual should be inescapable if it can be grown indoors at all.

A few of the comments at Davesgarden.com refer specifically to growing Cobaea as a houseplant. Some of the other comments mention it getting 20 feet (6.1 m) long outdoors, and being inclined to pull down large objects, so maybe that's the explanation? Another complaint is that there's a lot of foliage for not very many flowers, and that the flowers don't actually smell that great. All of which I will accept as an explanation until I find a better one.


Costus barbatus. My own photo (though not my own plant!).

I've never seen a Costus spp. (spiral ginger) for sale, though I always thought they looked interesting in pictures. Having seen some in person (at the Quad Cities Botanical Center), I'm less interested: I'd never realized how big they could get.³

I assume the size is the main problem, though finding out that they're related to gingers doesn't make me want a Costus much either.⁴ If they get burnt leaf tips even inside the humid, warm dome of the QCBC, there must be something touchy about them.


Cyperus alternifolius. Photo is mine; it was also taken at the QCBC.
I have no actual memories of seeing Cyperus alternifolius (umbrella plant, umbrella palm, umbrella papyrus, umbrella grass, umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh) for sale anywhere, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure I've personally seen someone growing one indoors (about 15 years ago, granted), so they must be available somewhere. My impression is that they need a ton of water and are really prone to spider mites; if anyone can confirm or refute that, I encourage you to do so.


Eriobotrya japonica. Picture is my own.
Eriobotrya japonica (loquat) leaves have a pleasant fuzzy texture, the plants grow slowly enough that they're not going to outgrow your windowsill immediately, and they're about average difficuly indoors. (I've had one for a couple years, due to the generosity of a PATSP reader, and aside from a brief and easily-corrected spell of spider mites, it's been fine.) So why are they not in stores? Couldn't tell you.

In theory, it's possible to get your own for free or mostly free, by buying a loquat and planting the seeds, so maybe there's no demand. (I don't actually see loquats for sale that often, but I don't spend a lot of time searching for them either. I'm sure I could find one if it were really important that I do so.) Or maybe they have some horrible characteristic that I haven't run into yet with my own plant.

Eucomis comosa. Photo: H. Zell, via Wikimedia Commons.
Eucomis cvv. (pineapple lily) is certainly visually striking, and I know they're sold in containers somewhere, for indoor cultivation, because I've seen people asking about them on the UBC indoor plant forum. I suspect they probably need more light than I could provide, but that wouldn't apply to everybody around here, so there must be some other reason.


Fatsia japonica. My own photo.
Fatsia japonica (Japanese aralia) isn't entirely unknown in Iowa -- the ex-job had them once before I started working there, and I've seen them at least a couple different times at Wallace's, in the Quad Cities. (The photo above was taken in Wallace's.) And I could be forgetting some occasions. But they're a lot rarer than the books would make you think. My own experience with them has been uniformly pretty negative: the one I had in 2009 lasted about six weeks before I found mealybugs on it and threw it away, and when I've looked at them since, I've generally found spider mites. Like with Camellia, Cissus antarctica, etc., I'm wondering if forced-air heating isn't in the process of driving them out of the houseplant trade.

Geogenanthus poeppigii. Photo by Cliff, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Magnus Manske.
I am completely unable to explain why I've never seen Geogenanthus poeppigii (seersucker plant, formerly G. undatus). Not even in a botanical garden. They were once widespread enough that all the books mentioned them, and they look neat enough that they would surely sell if offered. Hell, Geogenanthus is even in the Commelinaceae,⁵ so there's reason to think they could be produced in commercial quantities without a lot of effort. Also the sunporch theory wouldn't seem to apply; it's my understanding that Geogenanthus likes it warm.

Most sources that talk about G. poeppigii mention that it needs high humidity, so it's possible that it just doesn't do well enough for long enough in a store to be worth bringing in. But stores regularly carry any number of other plants that need high humidity and go downhill quickly without it: Calatheas, Selaginella, rex begonias, etc. Why is Geogenanthus special?


Again, this topic doesn't really lend itself to recommendations, though I can say Eriobotrya is fine indoors. The one I'd most like to try is Geogenanthus, even though I doubt it would do well for me.

Not pictured:

• Bougainvillea cvv. (bougainvillea): uncommon, but I see them occasionally in the independent garden centers.
• Bromelia spp./cvv. (bromeliad; no common name): never seen.
• Callistemon citrinus (syn. C. lanceolatus; crimson bottlebrush): I may have seen them occasionally as faux-bonsai; I'm not sure.⁶ Never a full-size plant.
• Campanula isophylla (Italian bellflower, star of Bethlehem): have never seen.
• Carissa macrocarpa (natal plum): have never seen.
• Catharanthus roseus (Madagascar periwinkle): routinely sold as an outdoor annual here, but I don't know anybody who's tried to keep one going indoors, nor would I ever attempt to do so myself, after seeing how much spider mites like them.
• Catopsis spp./cvv. (bromeliad; no common name): never seen.
• Chamaerops humilis / Livistonia spp. (European fan palm, Mediterranean fan palm; Chinese fan palm): rarely seen.
• Chirita / Primulina (chirita, primulina): have never seen. My personal plant died of unknown causes.
• Clerodendrum ugandense (blue butterfly bush, blue glory bower): once or twice at the ex-job.
• Crinodonna corsii (crinodonna, hybrid naked lady): have never seen?
• Crinum spp./cvv. (crinum lily): never seen, though I do know more than one person who's tried growing them indoors.
• Daphne odora (winter daphne): never seen.
• Dyckia spp./cvv. (dyckia): never seen in retail in Iowa. My first died more or less immediately; a second one is luckier so far.
• Eranthemum nervosum (blue sage): never seen, though I'm not sure I'd recognize it if I did.
• Euonymous spp./cvv. (spindle, spindle tree, euonymous): probably as an outdoor plant, but I don't shop for outdoor plants so I wouldn't know. I've never seen one sold as a houseplant, despite the books' collective insistence that this happens all the time.
• Faucaria spp. (tiger jaws): seen very occasionally.
• Ficus deltoidea (mistletoe fig, syn. F. diversifolia): rarely, if ever.⁷
• Freesia cvv. (freesia): very rarely, and so far only at the ex-job.
• Fuchsia cvv. (fuchsia): seasonally as an outdoor annual; I've never seen them sold as houseplants.
• Gelsemium sempervirens (Carolina jessamine, evening trumpetflower, woodbine): also never seen, but I don't know that I could recognize an unlabeled plant.

As ever, if you have other suggestions for the list, if you think I must have seen some particular plant somewhere, if you have an explanation for why they're not sold, etc., please leave a comment. Especially that explanation one. Or, again, plants that I talk about a lot that are never for sale where you live.

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¹ There are some pictures of a full-sized Caryota at this post, if you're interested.
² (which has only happened to me a couple times in Eastern Iowa, both of them quite a while ago)
³ Sure, I know they probably don't all get as big as the one in the photo. But even the smallish plants in some of the Wikimedia Commons pictures are big enough that they're never going to be desktop or windowsill plants.
⁴ Costus is in the family Costaceae, while Alpinia, Kaempferia, and Zingiber are in the Zingiberaceae. Both the Costaceae and Zingiberaceae are in the same order, the Zingiberales.
I've tried growing Alpinia zerumbet and Zingiber malaysianum, and they did okay, but they clearly weren't that happy. One of the Alpinias got scale, which isn't its fault; the other Alpinia rotted out, which arguably is its fault; the Zingiber is still with us, though it died back dramatically one or two winters ago and has literally never been the same since. So the Zingiberaceae isn't a family I'm looking to explore right now.
⁵ Same family as Tradescantia pallida, Tradescantia spathacea, Tradescantia zebrina, Callisia fragrans, and Cyanotis kewensis. Of the group, only Cyanotis kewensis is at all difficult to grow or propagate, and it's not really that hard.
⁶ All the different species of faux-bonsai look pretty much the same to me, because they're all usually about 3/4 dead.
⁷ (There are a couple Ficuses I never completely identified from the ex-job, so it's possible this was one of them. I'm fairly certain I've not seen any for sale locally in the last three years.)