Newish plants

This batch isn't very interesting until you get to the last one, and the last one isn't as interesting as it could be, in the context of yesterday's post, but, you know, they can't all be exciting plants you've never seen before.

Alpinia zerumbet variegata. Lowe's, Coralville, $3.25.
I have such mixed feelings about Lowe's. I wish they didn't have to mistreat the plants so badly, but if I'm honest, that's the main reason I still check to see what they have: I get curious about whether they have anything interesting marked down because it's on the brink of death.

I got a division of this variety of Alpinia from a reader last summer, and potted it up, and it did so well that I decided it would be worth it to try to revive this one. Ominously, when I asked about the price (it wasn't marked, but was on the distressed rack, so I figured it was discounted: I just didn't know how what the new price was), the employee asked, "gonna nurse it back to health, are you?" and laughed. I'm not sure if the idea amused him because he assumed I wouldn't know what I was doing and was therefore throwing my money away, or because he knew that it didn't matter whether I knew what I was doing because the plant was already so thoroughly destroyed that there was no bringing it back possible, or if he's just the kind of person who thinks everything sounds friendlier and more customer-servicey if accompanied by a laugh ('Twas the season to be jolly, after all), but in any case I was kind of disturbed by the reaction.

Since the photo was taken, mostly I've just cut off more leaves, but there are a few new ones opening. I should probably try to find a better spot for it, too: right now it's sort of in the path of a heater, which is likely not helping.

Asplundia 'Jungle Drum.' Lowe's, Coralville, $0.75.
Same thing, though in this particular case they had about seven or eight of these discounted, and this was the only one that looked like it was going to survive. The others were all soaking wet, standing in about an inch of water, and the emerging leaves were black. If only I'd gotten there sooner.

Not that I need more Asplundias: I just like them, and they're still rare enough around here that I feel sort of obliged to pick one up if I see one. Particularly when they're only $0.75.

Euphorbia ingens? Lowe's, Coralville, $9.
Yet another Lowe's rescue. They had bigger specimens of this same plant for $27, which I declined to buy the last time I was there because it looked like they'd gotten pretty beat-up in transit, but I have wanted one of these (whatever it is) for a while, so now I have one.

Dizygotheca elegantissima 'Olympia.' Lowe's, Coralville, $2.68.
This wasn't a rescue: I actually paid full price for this. Dizygotheca elegantissimas still make me nervous, even though I've had one at home for three and a half years now. It's been fine (though it did drop a ring of leaves from the very top of the plant recently, which was odd), so I'm pretty sure I can do this, but even so.

'Olympia' is the name Exotic Angel gives this variety: it's basically the same as the species, but the leaves are shorter and stubbier. I don't know that I like it, but it was different, the plants looked like they'd just come in, and it was under $3, so I'll gamble.

Saintpaulia NOID. Ace Hardware, Iowa City, $5.
More bravery. The 'Shimmer Shake' I bought in Cedar Rapids a month ago (see previous new plants post) is flowering abundantly now,¹ and the one I've had for years, the only survivor of the 2009 mass death, has been doing well and flowering continuously for over a year now,² so I figured I'd push my luck a bit further. I don't know what flower colors to expect here; it didn't have any when I bought it, and hasn't produced any flowers since, but it's only been three weeks or so.

Schlumbergera NOID. Lowe's, Coralville, $2.50.

Schlumbergera NOID. Lowe's, Coralville, $5.50.
Well I said I was going to grab some Schlumbergeras when they started marking them down. I was hoping to wait until they were cheaper than this (last year I saw several for $1, so I assume the same happened / is happening this year), but there were almost none available that weren't 'Caribbean Dancer' or something that looks like 'Caribbean Dancer,' so I panicked and bought early. The pink/magenta one is a 4" (10 cm) pot, and the white is a 6" (15 cm) pot.

Sophrolaeliocattleya Hazel Boyd 'Debbie.' Orchids and Moore, Iowa City, $22.44.
Orchids and Moore is a one-woman operation at the Sycamore Mall in Iowa City. Jacklyn Moore has been selling orchids there for about nine years there, but the hours are weird because it's a side job, so a lot of the time when I think about going, she's not there. I don't actually get into town that much, and to the Sycamore Mall even less, so I think I've only actually looked at what she's got twice.

Both times, I really wanted a Masdevallia, O&M being the only place I've seen them for sale,³ and both times I talked myself out of it because I knew if I bought one I'd be dooming it to death by underwatering.

The first time I looked at what she had (a long time ago -- I was still working in the garden center then), I didn't wind up buying anything, but this time, I have a few years of keeping a Brassolaeliocattleya alive under my belt,⁴ and I'd just bought the two Potinaras, so I was feeling more adventurous. It took a long time to rule out the Masdevallia, and then there was a scented Epidendrum or Epicattleya (some kind of Epi-something or another, anyway) that I thought about for a long time, but then at the end I grabbed this Slc., which I hadn't been considering particularly, or even thinking much about, because apparently my subconscious was working out the decision while I was dithering about the Epiwhatever.


It's a ridiculously difficult flower to photograph, because the color varies a lot depending on the lighting. Sometimes it's a bright orange-red, sometimes a satiny pink-red as in the picture, occasionally it's a deep wine-red. And then the camera sometimes makes colors up besides, so I wouldn't say the above is a particularly good representation of the flower, but it's the best I'm going to be able to do.

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¹ Though, disappointingly, the color is not what I thought I was going to get: the spent flowers that were still attached to the plant looked like they were light pink or lavender with dark blue-violet flecks, like a variety I used to have, so I bought it because of that, and instead I've got a plant with monstrous, huge, ruffly, doubled things that are a solid color somewhere between blue-violet and lavender. No flecks at all. For the moment, it's flowering so robustly that I don't mind that much, but even so: not the variety I thought I was buying, and I'm puzzled as to how I could have been that far off.
² (Though it needs to be root-pruned and re-potted.)
³ It's possible that someone was selling them at the orchid show at Wallace's Garden Center last March, but A) if anybody was, I don't remember seeing it, and B) it wouldn't have mattered, because I have a very clear and distinct memory of not having enough money to be buying orchids at the time, so I actually sort of tried not to look too closely at the stuff that was for sale.
⁴ And not just alive, but getting bigger and stuff too. I knew when I bought it that it wasn't of flowering size yet, but figured that was the only way I could afford to try one out. It still hasn't flowered, but there are some interesting, tiny buds as of the last couple weeks, which are either leaves or flowers. Since I've never even seen the flowers, except in photos online, this would be very exciting news, if they turned out to be flower buds, but I think they're probably actually just leaves. But leaves would be sort of exciting too. I'm just tickled that it's not dead, really.

Fun With Exotic Angel Tags

I had a lucky break, or at least what I hope is a lucky break, a couple weeks ago, when the husband and I went to Cedar Rapids. We stopped at Lowe's, and I found a set of four plants, heavily discounted, that I had considered buying months earlier. It's a plant I really like, and almost never see for sale anywhere, but lack of space at home, plus lack of money, kept me from buying them at the time. But then we went back maybe a month and a half later, and not only were they still there, but they were about a quarter of the original price. So I bought them all. (I guess I wasn't really that bothered by the lack of space.)

Your task: to use the identifying information provided by the retailer (Lowe's) and wholesaler (Exotic Angel), to deduce what I bought.

The pot had a sticker on it identifying them as ferns:


And the tags in the pots said they were Calathea roseo-picta 'Angela:'

(They butchered the format for the botanical name, of course, but one assumes that's what they mean.)
Sooooooo . . . it is obviously which plant?

 

 

 

Why, Asplundia 'Jungle Drum,' (usually sold as Carludovica) of course. I mean, duh.


EA has a logo, but doesn't appear to have an official company motto yet. Their greenhouses, according to the website, have signs in them saying "Taking care of our customers is, taking care of our future," [sic] which is the kind of vapid, mispunctuated slogan that would make me want to slit my wrists within the first month of employment there, and which might be as close as they get to a company motto. Clearly they need something better. I propose "Names, schmames."

Seriously, EA: part of "taking care of your customers" is letting them know what the hell kind of plant you're selling them, and what they're supposed to do with it. So either take care of your damn future already, or get a new slogan.

And lose the comma either way: it is wrong, and it makes you look stupid.

Random plant event: Anthurium andraeanum double spadix

Apologies to those five or so readers to whom I owe e-mails. You're on the list, and I'm working on it, but, well, I've mentioned that I'm busy, right?

This particular flower is both a freak and a rescue. I bought it last September from Lowe's, because it looked like it was basically fine except for having been drowned (this being, apparently, the only thing that Lowe's knows to do to a plant). Brought it home, cleaned off the roots as best as I could, repotted it in good new soil, and then watched as about 2/3 of the plant died. But it's come back.

I think it's maybe still a little traumatized, though:


I've seen double spathes before, on Anthurium as well as Spathiphyllum, but I think double spadixes (spadices?) is a first for me.

I give the plant points for at least trying to meet me halfway: it's clearly not quite got it together yet, but hey, it's trying. Maybe the next flower will be normal.

Or maybe it won't. I suppose it would be cool if I had a plant that always produced a double spadix.

Lost causes, and not-lost causes

The half-off rack at Lowe's. Boy did I feel self-conscious getting this photo.
I enjoy, as I've mentioned, occasionally picking up an ailing plant (big-box distressed racks, consignment stores, yard sales, abandoned plants hanging out near dumpsters for long periods) and trying to bring it back to some semblance of respectability. At best, it's a good way to get a good future plant for free or cheap, and at worst, it's a chance to learn which gambles aren't worth the risk.

This is on my mind more than usual lately because right now at work we're sort of beginning to switch over to thinking about the tropicals again, after the long neglectful nightmare that was the spring. Specifically, we've been going through the old stuff, disposing of the lost causes and cleaning up those few that might still make it, in anticipation of a new order of stuff which just arrived yesterday right before close.

Tillandsia cyanea I got cheap from a grocery store over a year ago: it had bloomed out and was no longer especially desirable.
So I've been doing a lot of thinking about some trashy-looking plants lately, whether they'll come back, whether to give up, and in so doing, I've come up with some very general guidelines for how to make that decision. A lot of people, I think, are not as willing to take on fixer-upper plants as I am, and if you're one of those people, although there's no shame in that, a lot of this isn't going to be all that applicable to you. But if you are one of those people, here's how I do it:

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1. Mealybugs, Scale, Whitefly

Even if it's on a 6-foot tall plant with gorgeous, huge, fragrant flowers and leaves like rainbows, that spontaneously generates hummingbirds and chamber music all day long, if I see a mealybug, it's out of the running, full stop. Ditto for scale or whiteflies. Enough of those sneak past me as is; I don't need to deliberately bring in more.

Mealybug on Cereus peruvianus.

2. Spider Mites

Spider mites may or may not count against a plant. If there aren't a lot of them, if it's a small plant with broad leaves that looks like it would be easy to wash off in a sink, if it's not a species normally prone to mites, then I might consider it. Spider mites always disqualify the following species: Hedera helix, Dizygotheca elegantissima, Araucaria heterophylla, Codiaeum variegatum, Hedera canariensis, Schefflera actinophylla, Schefflera arboricola, Ficus elastica, Ficus benjamina, Polyscias spp., Maranta spp., Calathea spp., Fatsia japonica and Fatshedera lizei.

Spider mites on a Ficus elastica.
I may be willing to gamble on Cordyline fruticosa or Dieffenbachia spp. with spider mites, depending on the extent of the damage, the size (washability) of the plant, and the density of the infestation, though this is less because it's practical than because I like them more than most species.

3. Aphids

Aphids, on the other hand, never disqualify anything automatically unless they've clearly been there for so long that the plant has distorted growth. Or if they're big enough or dark enough that I can see them moving around, which sometimes squicks me out. Aphids are too easy to get rid of to be worth worrying about. (Indoors. Outdoors is a different story.)
Aphids on a Salvia 'Black and Blue.' The plants are vigorous and look just fine, but they are bug magnets, and it's looking like a lot of the money we put into them is unrecoverable.

4. Fungus Gnats

Fungus gnats don't disqualify anything at all, ever. I don't mind fungus gnats. They're adorable. Like puppies. They're like puppies that try to crawl up your nose and drown themselves in your coffee.


5. Difficulty Level

I don't try to rescue plants that I have a hard time growing when they're in good condition, or that I haven't attempted in good condition. So no Gardenia, no Coffea, no Alocasia or Musa or Calathea. Basically, if it's above 7.0 on my difficulty scale, I don't even think about it. I have, however, scored some perfectly respectable Cordyline fruticosa (6.8), Saintpaulia ionantha cvv. (6.1), and Dieffenbachia spp. (4.5) before.

This looks similar to the Saintpaulia variety that had me so impressed in December, though it is in fact a different one. I found it at Lowe's in late March for like $1.50 or something crazy. It had been overwatered, but has come back very quickly and beautifully. I like when they're grateful.

6. Sunburn

Sunburn is not usually a problem. Yes, it looks crappy, but most plants will pull out of it, given enough time to do so. Sunburned Dracaenas are a particular enthusiasm of mine, but I've also seen Chlorophytum 'Fire Flash' on the racks at Lowe's, and they'll bounce back from just about anything. Sunburnt Spathiphyllum will also come back fine, so long as they're not having some other problem simultaneously (like being too wet, e.g.).

Formerly sunburnt Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana.'
7. Too Wet

Rot and overwatering usually are problems, especially if the plant is coming from a big box store: if the soil is soaking wet, or the plant is in a drainageless pot, it still might work, but I'm a lot more cautious about it. I passed up a Asplundia 'Jungle Drum' I wanted once, because of this. Sometimes I buy anyway, and I've had mixed results: roughly every other waterlogged Dieffenbachia from Lowe's I buy makes it. Always pass up overwatered plants from species that are especially sensitive to overwatering, like Dracaena deremensis 'Janet Craig,' cacti, Haworthia spp., Zamioculcas zamiifolia, and Sansevieria trifasciata: the odds are very much against you. (Though see #11.)

Half-drowned Aglaonema 'Jubilee', saved from an abusive customer and partially-rehabilitated. It's going to take forever to get anything particularly good out of the plant, but it's eventually going to happen.
One also needs to be on the lookout for signs of rot with too-wet plants: mushy stems, bad smells, etc. Sometimes it's possible to salvage a bit of healthy cane from a plant that's partially rotted away (Aglaonema and I get along well for that reason); with other plants, by the time the rot is obvious, there's usually not anything left to save (Dracaena marginata, for example).

8. No Good Reason to Discount

Some places will discount plants just to make space for new stuff: they may have a torn leaf or two, but essentially they're fine. Those can be rescued with no shame whatsoever. I've gotten a nice Strelitzia nicolai that way, and I've seen slightly irregular Monstera deliciosa that would have been of interest to me except that I have too many of them already.

I think I paid Lowe's like $10 for this. It might have been less. I don't remember anymore.

9. Too Dry

Underwatering depends on severity: if there's no green left and the whole thing is crispy, it's a lost cause. If there's still some green, surrounded by brown, it could go either way. If it's all green but very limp, you've got a good chance. Again, some plants bounce back better than others. I'd skip over dry Homalomena, Coffea, ferns, Radermachera sinica, Hedera helix, and Codiaeum.

Asparagus plumosus, rescued from a customer who was I guess just not that into watering. The comeback is excruciatingly slow, and I may decide that I don't have the patience, but it's not taking up that much room so wev.
Other plants will spring back to life after a long dry spell, even if they've been dry for a long time. Aspidistra elatior is one of those, as are Yucca guatemalensis and Sansevieria trifasciata.

10. Too Cold

Plants with cold damage have a good chance of coming back if they like cold anyway (Hedera helix, Rhapis excelsa, Cissus rhombifolia), if there's not much visible damage, if they're known to be tough plants (Crassula ovata, Yucca guatemalensis), or if they're very large plants with large rootballs. Plants like Dieffenbachia, Aglaonema, Dracaena, and Musa, with tropical origins and big broad leaves, tend to be more tender and are probably not worth your time. Also bear in mind that although a lot of plants will survive some degree of cold damage, just because it doesn't kill them doesn't mean they're ever going to be pretty again.

Also the odds of survival are, as you'd expect, related to how cold the plant got, and for how long. Almost all houseplants can survive a brief dip into the 50s (F; roughly 10-16C): they may drop some leaves, but it usually won't kill them. On the other hand, most of them will die from sustained temperatures in the 30s (4C to -2C), and only a rugged few will come back from 20s.

11. Propagatability

Sometimes plants aren't ever going to look any better than they do already, but they may be a decent source of raw material for propagation. A thoroughly trashed Syngonium, Epipremnum, vining Philodendron, Aglaonema, Cissus, Hoya, Begonia, Ficus, Peperomia, Cordyline, Tradescantia, Sansevieria, Echeveria, Zamioculcas, Sedum, etc., may still be perfectly good for starting a new plant: the question is just, how long do you want to wait for it, and how much room are you willing to devote to it? A plant that's too far gone may, of course, still not make it, but I've managed to propagate a lot of plants from bits and pieces. Peperomia caperata is particularly valuable in this respect: as we have seen a couple times, all you need is a single moderately healthy leaf and some time. Zamioculcas is likewise, except for needing considerably more time.
Discounted Syngonium podophyllum from Lowes.
Also a discounted Syngonium podophyllum from Lowe's, except this one's been turned into cuttings.
Bromeliads also tend to fall especially into this category. Guzmania, Aechmea, and Vriesea, specifically, are all usually discounted after the blooming period is over, so if you're willing to invest the time, you can get five or six plants for the price of half of one. This can be a pretty good deal, but you do have to make a bit of a commitment. I think Vriesea splendens is plenty attractive even when not in bloom, so it's consequently an especially good prospect, though it also tends to be more expensive than most, even when discounted, and because it's still attractive when not in bloom, I think it's often held at full price longer. It's good to check bromeliads for root rot before getting excited, but if the roots are still working to anchor the plant, there shouldn't be a problem.

Baby Zamioculcas zamiifolia from a leaflet I grabbed from the floor of a competitor, well over a year ago. (They would have just thrown it away, and it was already broken off. Also this was before I had my present job, so they weren't a competitor at the time, exactly.)

12. Wouldn't Know a Good Thing if it Bit Them on the Ass

My Hylocereus was discounted when I bought it, because it had been the base for a graft, and the graft fell off. I didn't care about the lurid red Gymnocalycium anyway, so I wound up getting the plant that I wanted, for half the original price, and with some of the work of de-grafting done for me already.

Hylocereus undatus.

13. Repetitions

Plants that you have had before, and cared for successfully, are more likely to work out as rescues, for the obvious reason that you already have some idea what these plants want and how they communicate.

My third Dracaena fragrans 'Massangeana' rescue. This is a piece that got broken off of a plant we got in the last tropicals shipment, in March. I rooted it in water, planted it, and I think I'm going to wind up keeping this one.

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So those are the basic ideas. Most of it's pretty common sense, really.

My employer, incidentally, doesn't put tropical plants on clearance ever: it's something I've talked to her about before, and the gist of the logic is, if the plant could be brought back to respectability, then we should just do that and sell it at full price, and if it can't be brought back to respectability, then we shouldn't be selling it to the customers under any circumstances, discounted or not. This, I think, is a little oversimplified (yes, we could put $25 worth of man-hours into bringing back a Peperomia with one good leaf, but if we're then going to turn around and sell it for $3.50, we'd be money ahead to just put it on clearance, no?), but she worries about us getting a reputation for having trashy plants.

I agree that this should be a concern. We aren't going to have the cheapest plants in the area, ever -- it's just not possible, given our size and suppliers and stuff -- so the least we could do is try to have nice plants, and unusual plants. People will still buy from us if ours look the best and if we have stuff nobody else has. (Although, it's difficult to have the best-looking plants when everybody else gets them straight from the supplier looking perfect, has them a week or two, and then puts them on clearance, without ever having to put any time into caring for them. Plus the competition can buy them cheaper to begin with. I think this may be a losing fight. Hence the pushing to get different stuff, weird stuff, etc., so that at least we can have stuff that nobody else does.) So I try to maintain everything as best as I can, but I don't think there's anything necessarily trashy about repricing things that aren't selling.

WCW agrees. If we can't get permission for discounts, we have to look for other options, and what we've come up with instead is, anything that looks unhappy gets brought into a back room, or is shoved under a table, and has to fend for itself. If it comes back, then awesome, we'll put it back out and sell it; if it won't, then it gets thrown away, chopped to pieces and propagated, or it follows one of us home. Benign neglect in a new location does sometimes work, though it's not an especially efficient way to go about fixing things up, and sometimes, depending on what kind of space is available, we may end up displaying crappy-looking merchandise anyway.

Don't look at me like that. Like your job doesn't involve catch-22s too.