Tuesday, November 13, 2007

House Plants

Yesterday, this orchid bloomed. Some kind of Phalaenopsis.


This Schlumbergia, which has been in the family for years, began blooming a week or so ago. These photos are from when it was blooming full force. Yesterday I noticed that Lisa at Miller Time has the same cultivar.

I'm proud of this little arrangement with the variegated spider plant. One of my sisters made the black bowl.

My Selenocereus chrysocardium has never bloomed, but it's still one of my top 3 favorite houseplants. It's a tropical cactus, as is the Schlumbergia.

This is a trio of wild plants, all in the Saxifragaceae. I took only snippets of these rhizomatous species and eventually they'll go in a shady place in the garden so don't try to make me feel bad. The two larger ones are species of Mitella, or Mitre's Wort from the Arcata Community Forest. They have snowflake-like flowers.

Ok, so this one will not make it to the garden because it's from Arizona. It's the alpine Heuchera rubescens, I believe. And I do feel a bit guilty about this one.

There are many native shade plants where I live and several of them have great potential as houseplants. I know, why have them in your house when you could have all those exciting exotics?

A couple of months ago I sowed seed from Clintonia andrewsiana, an orchid-esque plant native to the redwoods. My hope is that, once germinated, I can grow them as a group of houseplants. This will save them from the slugs, but will also help me really get to know these plants. Eventually I can use these plants to start a colony in our backyard forest. But there's another good reason for me to grow natives indoors: I really like them. They are unusual and truly beautiful.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

great orchids! what is your new e-mail it just bounced back?

Ellen Zachos said...

How about Rhipsalis and Hoyas? Those might be two genera you'd get into.

Gardener of La Mancha said...

Ya, I've always liked both those genera, especially Rhipsalis. All those cool tropical cacti...but honestly I'm trying NOT to get into anything, at least not until I have a stable place to live. So are those your specialties?

lisa said...

so pretty mike, but on a more serious note, TAG!! you're it!! you can find rules to the game on my blog. this means you will actually have to write about something other than gardening!!