The Variegated Thumb

I’m not actually suggesting a new holiday.  It’s just a clever name for my post.  Although I wouldn’t mind this being a holiday - I already celebrate it everyday.

The National Weather Center - across the street from where I work.

[For those who are interested, I work on the research campus at the University of Oklahoma.  The research campus is made up of about six buildings built over the last 5 years.  These buildings are filled with academics, government groups and private companies (like the one I work for).  The anchor of the research campus is the National Weather Center.]

Aglaonema and a palm tree in the fourier of my office building

My office building (like the others on the campus) is a nice, new facility that has lots of plants in the hallways and office suites.  Plants are added for decoration, as well as to help purify air in the office environment.  This is a pretty trendy thing nowadays, and I guess it has been for quite a while.  What’s cool for me is that some of my favorite plants are those common plants kept as easy-care foliage plants (such as the Aglaonema pictured above).

Ficus tree, Sanseveira (short pot) and a very cool Philodendron

All of the plants are in really nice, huge pots.  And the plants are grouped in twos or threes.  This is my favorite grouping.  I walk by it each morning on my way up the stairs.  The Philodendron is so cool.  I think I might have to ask one of the plant maintainers if I could get a cutting…

Close-up of the really cool Philodendron in the stairwell.

Other common plants in the office building are Dracaenas, Epipremnum ivies and large Bird of Paradise.  Here is a nice grouping of two Dracaenas in the hallway.

Two tall Dracaena warneckii plants in the hallway.

Of course, being the planty guy that I am, all of these great plants scattered throughout the building aren’t enough for me.  I have my own set of plants on my desk: Philodendron hederaceum (’Micans’), Polyscias scutellaria, Scindapsus pictus, Aglaonema sp.  I used to have a Philodendron ‘Brazil’ on my desk, but it got too large and had to be taken home.

A shield Aralia (Polyscias scutellaria) on my desk next to the computer monitor.

The shield Aralia was a birthday gift the first year I started working here, so it’s now about 2 years old and has grown a lot.  I’ve heard that these plants are a little finicky and hard to keep.  No doubt it probably would not be as healthy as it is today if I wasn’t looking at it 5 days a week!  The office environment (and my constant watching eye) has apparently suited it well.

Philodendron hederaceum 'Micans'

My Philodendron ‘Micans’ is starting to grow as rapidly as my Philodron ‘Brazil’ did.  It had to be taken home when our company moved and my desk space was reduced.  I really like it’s rate of growth, but I hope the ‘Micans’ can stick around a while longer.

Scindapsus pictus and Aglaonema on my desk.

In addition to all sorts of health benefits in the office space, plants just make me happy and my work space would be depressing without them.

Do you keep any plants in your workspace?  Or does anyone else in your office?

I like to grow all kinds of different plants.  Some plants I pick for their foliage, others for their blooms, and still others for their unusual appearance.  Some plants thrive in my care and some others don’t.  Occasionally some even die.  Whether it was my fault or simply a plant destined to death because of an unseen illness when I purchased it.

Every plant deserves a second chance, right?  [With the exception of Coconut palms.  I don't think I can ever grow one of those things.]

I have given quite a few plant species second chances in my care.  Last week I posted about my Philodendron ‘Xanadu’, which is just one species of plant I gave a second chance.  The first ‘Xanadu’ I purchased died about a month after I purchased it.  My second seems on it’s way to a long and happy life in my care.

This post is about three particular plants that survived when given a second chance.

Scindapsus pictus - Silver pothos, Satin pothos
This is one of my very favorite plants is it’s on my 2nd chance list!  How about that?  Actually, this plant would be one of my very favorites even if I had to give it a thousand chances and never succeeded in growing it.  It’s just one of the most beautiful plants I’ve ever seen and no amount of struggle in growing it would ever dampen my admiration.  Thankfully, I haven’t struggled too much to grow this one.  I just had a bad first experience with the plant.

Scindapsus pictus

Many small houseplants are put in stores mere days after being potted.  That’s right, most houseplants are grown in big factories where they place cuttings in hydroponic chambers and force roots to develop.  When I bought my first Scindapsus pictus, I promptly repotted it when I got home.  I think it is possible that I tried to repot the plant when it still had rather immature roots.  The roots that grow in water have to adjust to actual soil conditions once they are transplanted.  The trauma of two transplants within a couple of days might have been enough to do this plant in.  The other problem was that I probably didn’t have the plant in enough light.  I’m sure it was being grown in a greenhouse in Florida.  Believe it or not, a greenhouse in Florida receives more light than a shady windowsill in Oklahoma.  That’s just how it goes.

Now that I have given the plant a second chance, I have a really nice specimen that has been growing at my desk at work for about a year and a half now.  I have taken some clippings from my office plant and potted them in a pot with a stake, hoping to train the plant to climb the stake.  About a month ago, I bought a large hanging Scindapsus for home.  It’s the plant pictured above.

Ficus elastica ‘Burgundy’ - Burgundy Rubber Plant
I bought a small burgundy rubber plant a couple of years ago.  I think there were 3 or 4 stems in a small 4″ pot.  I knew that they were fairly common houseplants and therefore probably not very hard to grow.  I expected mine to get large and so I repotted my little plant in a much larger pot shortly after I got it.  I didn’t know at the time, but this is not a good idea.  Ideally a plant should be in a pot that is about 1-2 inches wider than the plant’s root span.  Most people understand that when you water your plant, the roots absorb the water from the soil.  But what I didn’t realize is that when you repot a plant in pot that is much wider than the root span, the roots will not absorb the water in much of the soil and the soil will stay wet much longer.  I’m almost certain that this is what happened to my first rubber plant, which showed signs of root rot before dying.

The second time around, I purchased one single little stem in a tiny pot.  How can you not take a chance on an attractive $2 plant?

Ficus elastica 'Burgundy' - Rubber Tree

This time around, I have kept my single stem in a small pot.  I have had to resist the temptation to pot several plants in larger pots, having learned from my experience with the rubber plant (and a couple of others that had the same problem).  After a month or two of stagnancy, my rubber plant has finally starting producing some new leaves.  This is exciting because the new leaves are very glossy and dark red.  Over time the leaves thicken and deepen into that unique color of purple green.

There are some large specimens of this plant in the hallways of my office building that I enjoy looking at each time I have to go upstairs.

The Ficus genus is an interesting group of trees, ranging from the small, very common Ficus benjamina houseplant tree and all of the fig trees to the unique rubber tree and the gigantic Banyan tree (Ficus benghalensis).  There are some Banyan trees that cover acres.  One such famous tree is located in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.  Another one is located at the Indian Botanic Garden.  I will be visiting the Hawaiian Banyan tree this Spring and will hopefully have some pictures to post here.

Alocasia amazonica - African Mask
I had one of these plants probably about 8 years ago.  I can’t even remember how long I kept it alive or how it died.  I remember seeing it for the first time in a little houseplant store that opened on Main Street here in town.  My first reaction was that it reminded me of a Pterodactyl.  For some reason, the store had decided to start a plant business and buy about 100 of each of 3 different plants.  I’m not kidding - they had about 100 pots of 3 different plants (4 at most).  At least, that’s how I remember it.  One of the plants they had decided to sell was Alocasia amazonica.  I’m not sure what their business plan was.  I guess it was to turn everyone in town into a fan of those three species.  Needless to say, the store didn’t last very long.  Unfortunately, neither did my plant.  The two events were unrelated.  At the time I wasn’t all that interested in plants and I think mine just got neglected.

Since then my plant habits have changed quite a bit.  I’m more likely to overcare for a plant now than to ignore one.  I bought a small pot with two Alocasia amazonica bulbs/stems just a couple of months ago.  My plant hasn’t changed much - just grown taller - but I don’t seem to be having any trouble keeping this one alive.  I imagine this summer my plant might produce a couple more bulbs and leaves whenever it is in happier growing conditions.  One of the two stems sort of collapsed recently, but it has been growing okay with a thin dowel rod as support.

Alocasia amazonica, or as I like to say, the "pterodactyl" plant

Alocasias are from the Aroid family, of which I am a collector.  They are pretty closely related to Colocasias (another Aroid genus), which are the plants commonly called “Elephant Ears.”  There are approximately 70 species of Alocasias and quite a few cultivars.  They are grown for their stunning, and often very glossy, foliage.

Recently I sat down and brainstormed about all of the things I could write about on The Variegated Thumb.  One of the topics that came to mind was a sort of “field trip report.”  I have a list of places that I want to visit - be it a local nursery, botanical garden in a neighboring state, or something even more far-fetched.  I thought a report about my trip with some pictures and information would make a very appropriate blog post.  So I have plans to release a trip report about once a month.  [Other recurring topics I have planned are book reviews, plant finds, genera profiles, aquatic posts, and projects.]

My first trip report is unfortunately not from a trip I took myself, hence the word “virtual” in the title.  I’m going to have to live through pictures and some seeds that were brought back to me.  My parents just returned from a week-long cruise to the Caribbean.  They left from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and landed in Grand Turks, Tortola, St. Marten, and Half Moon Cay (Bahamas).

At one point on the trip my mom noticed some seeds hanging off of a plant and commented about it to my dad.  My dad, wearing cargo shorts, decided to carry a couple home in his pocket.  The seeds of two other mystery plants caught their attention on the trip and so now I have seeds from three unknown plants.

The Seeds of Mystery

Mystery seeds from the Caribbean

The first seed is like a large nut.  It seems to have the most distinct appearance of the three seeds, so I  hoped someone would know what this one is.

The second seed is the pit of a small fruit.  The fruit was not much larger than the pit and was shriveled and brown when I first saw it.  I peeled it away easily and washed the seed by hand.  My mom remembers seeing a lot of Fiddle leaf fig trees (Ficus pandurata) on their trip and I suspect that the fruit that I removed from this pit might have been a fig.

The third seed was also inside of a fruit, but the fruit layer around the seed was much thinner in this case.  My mom remarked about how much this one looks like a large lemon seed.  I agree.

Identifying the Mystery Seeds

The only clues I had for determining the plants from which these seeds came is the appearance, their departure port location and the four cruise stops.

I posted the picture above to one of my favorite forums on the internet - the Name that Plant forum on GardenWeb.  That forum is sort of my Watson, if you will.  Within 20 minutes(!) I had already received a positive identification on the first seed.  The first seed seems to have come from a Christmas Palm (Veitchia merrillii).  I looked around and found some other pictures of these seeds, as well some important information - they are commonly planted in southern Florida.  The good news continues - apparently they are fairly easy to grow from seed and make decent container plants!

One down, two to go…

If you have any information on the remaining two seeds or think you might know what one of them is, please let me know.  I can try to germinate them, but I’m not sure how much luck I will have without knowing what they are.