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.

I was driving home from work a couple weeks ago when I noticed a huge piece of bark on the side of the road.  It had fallen off the side of a large tree that had been cut down.  The tree had been chopped off at the height of the fence (about 6′) and the bark slid off the tree several years later

Like a football scout (it is that season), I looked at it and all I could see was potential.  I came back that evening and loaded it up in my wife’s SUV.  Now it’s sitting on my back porch waiting to be put to good use.  The bark measures about 6 feet x 2.5 feet.  You should be able to see from the picture how big it is.  It also has really good character.

Me holding up the prized piece of bark. Look how big!

The only problem is deciding what to do with it.  I have a couple of ideas, but haven’t acted on anything yet.  Mainly my ideas focus on climbing plants.

1. I could construct a sort of stand and mount the bark on it, holding it upright.  Then I could start to train some of my climbers to attach to it.  I have a lot of good plant candidates (mostly Aroids) for this.  I have just begun to train a couple of my Aroids to climb up some stakes I made.  These are Philodendron microstictum and Scindapsus pictus (one of my favorite plants).

Clippings of Scindapsus pictus that I have staked for climbing.

2. One of the most common uses for bark among “planty” people is for mounting orchids.  However, I am kind of out of my orchid swing right now.  I have had as many as 5 orchids in the past, but I only have one right now and it has moved to my mother-in-law’s house because it wasn’t doing very well under my care.  This huge piece of bark would look amazing covered in orchids, but if I decide to use it in that manner I’ll be putting it on hold for now.  I’m also not sure if this bark would be most appropriate for mounting orchids.  I suppose it couldn’t hurt.  But orchid-mounting bark usually is more porous and can be soaked in water.  This piece of bark would not be a good fit for that kind of use due to its size, as well as its texture.

Do you have any ideas about how this great piece of bark could be used?

I started a plant journal (on paper) in the last month.  I decided to start keeping track of my plants as they grow, as well as document any new plants I get.  I have spent most of my journaling time not talking specifically about my plants, but about plant knowledge I have gained recently.  When Russ sent me a box stuffed full of Aroids, I did a lot of image searching of the different plants he had sent me.  A number of these plants have 2 distinct leaf habits, which is common among many Aroids, especially Philodendrons.  Leaves in the first stage - the immature or juvenile stage - are usually smaller and more simple looking.  Although sometimes the juvenile leaves are more colorful.  When the plant matures leaves can become much larger and often develop splits or holes.  This maturation process is usually instigated by the plant beginning to climb high up the trunk of a tree.  The splits and holes in the leaves enable the large leaves of the plant to be more resistant to wind.  The Epipremnum pinnatum v. ‘Cebu Blue’ that I received from Russ has small, lance-like, pale blue leaves.  As the Cebu Blue matures, the leaves can grow to several feet and have large splits in them.  If you are not familiar with this characteristic of many Aroids, you would find yourself trying to convince me that these could not be the same plant.  But they are!

Many plants displaying the ‘immature’ habits are called ’shinglers.’  I found an International Aroid Society article about these.  The immature flat, round leaves lay up close to the climbing surface, sometimes overlapping and looking like shingles.  One of the best examples of a shingler is a Scindapsus pictus.

I just learned today that the characteristic of multiple distinct leaf habits is called heteoroblastic development.  I think the word is a fitting analogy for my hobby with plants.  My hobby has recently gone through a transformation that makes my old hobby look like a different species of hobbies.  But it’s the same me and the same love of plants that’s underlying this hobby.

Here’s some other miscellaneous knowledge that I recently gained.  Several times in picture captions I have seen a Genus name and then the word ‘NOID.’  ‘NOID’ means ‘No Identification’ or ‘Not identified.’  From what I can tell, this can mean that the person does know what species the plant is, or it has literally not been classified yet.

Also, I’ve known that v. stands for ‘variety’ but I had never even seen ‘f.’ before until Russ was identifying one of my Aglaonemas as A. commutatum v. maculatum f. maculatum.  Apparently f. means ‘forma.’

This post commences my plant blog. In the last year or two I have become a very avid hobbyist of all things plants. Maybe not all things plants, but many things plants, including some tangent hobbies. In fact, one of these tangent hobbies is how I made my way towards “plant-geek.”
I have kind of liked plants for a long time. When I was younger I used to help my mom water all of her plants. I was pretty good at remembering all of the names and identifying them when I saw them away from our home. My grandmothers were both fond of flowers and plants, too.

So, when I had my own house I naturally had a couple of houseplants to make the place feel “like home.”

Oddly enough, I think my current obsession with plants (yes, it is an obsession: ask Christie!) grew out of my aquarium hobby, which I just started at the beginning of 2005. After setting up my 29 gallon aquarium I was excited and spent quite a bit of time watching my newly-acquired fish swim around my fully-stocked tank. But soon, I became a little less interested in my aquarium, which would change little with time. All of my time of planning the perfect fish and decorations had allowed me to constantly change my mind and redesign. However, after the aquarium was set up there were few changes I could make (usually just when I lost a fish). Anyway, I soon found that there were some aquatic plants that could be added to my aquarium – and some of the fish I had in my tank actually prefer a planted tank! So I slowly started collecting plants for my aquarium and making my aquarium more suitable for their growth. I even went through a tedious process of emptying my tank and starting the whole setup again, using a richer plant substrate, rather than large gravel pebbles. I quickly became a huge fan of the aquatic genus Anubias. I now own the following Anubias species:

· A. afzelli var. lanceolata
· A. barteri
· A. barteri var. nana
· A. barteri var. nana ‘petite’
· A. barteri var. nana ‘marble leaf’
· A. coffeefolia
· A. gracilis

So, you might notice that one of those tangent hobbies that I have taken on is plant taxonomy. Not that I am a taxonomist, or anything. But I really like to know what varieties of each plant that I have. And I like to try to collect as many different types that I can. It’s especially a challenge for aquatic plants, since there are relatively few locations to buy them.

The analogous houseplant genus that I collect like anubias is called aglaonema. It is a very common and popular foliage plant used in office buildings and malls, etc. It’s common name is ‘Chinese Evergreen.’ There are a ton of varieties of this plant, both natural and cultivars. I just have 5 of them as of right now, but I am planning on collecting quite a few more. I currently have:

· A. ‘Silver King’ (nitidum x. pictum ‘Tricolor’)
· A. ‘B.J. Freeman’
· A. Minima
· A. ‘Maria’
· A. unknown

But hey! I’m getting a little too specific for my introductory post. Maybe you’re wondering why I named my blog site what I did (or maybe not). Being a connoisseur of fine foliage plants, I like variegation, so rather than naming my site after the common phrase “The Green Thumb,” I chose this fun variation - or maybe I should say variegation! For now, I will leave you with a picture of a beautiful scindapsus pictus: