Home Depot Alert

Home Depot Alert

While you are out at Home Depot buying supplies to create beautiful walls like those in Ron Hoess’ recent blog entries, you might want to check out the plant sale. Small tropical indoor plants are $2.50 each. This is inexpensive enough that you can experiment with propagating some of them. I chose several red polka dot plants (Hypoestes phyllostachya) and cut off all the large leaves. I planted the bare stems in a potting mix of potting soil, sand, perlite, and vermiculite (make it looser and lighter than just straight potting soil). I used my favorite free mini terrarium: a grocery store rotisserie chicken container! They should root within 2-3 weeks. Keep the soil damp but not wet. Keep the cover on loosely and air it every other day for a few minutes.

redpolkadot1

redPolkaDotTrim

RedPDplanted

Oh No! Stop Flowering!

Oh No! Stop Flowering!

It is about a week before the Flower Show and suddenly, as if in anticipation, many of my plants have started to flower! Stop it! Can’t you wait one more week? They do look beautiful, though, so if I can keep them going, they will look great for the show.

ANISODONTEA SCABROSA, dwarf hibiscus, flowering
CUPHEA HYSSOPIFOLIA, Mexican heather, flowering
HYPOESTES PHYLLOSTACHYA ‘WHITE SPLASH SELECT’, Polka Dot plant, flowering
HYPOESTES PHYLLOSTACHYA ‘WHITE SPLASH SELECT’, Polka Dot plant, flowering