My windowsill gardens

[gardengirl13]

Well all the plants are back in regular potting mix, two died VERY fast on me. The other two were not happy at all so I quickly moved them back and they're both pushing out new leaves again. So yeah, regular potting soil for them for now on. I did keep the snake plant in the gritty mix and he seems happy. But I tend to over water them so I hope this will help me from doing that.

The cactus and succulents are all doing very well. I'm learning their needs and they seem to be happy. Just not the lithops. No matter what I try they just die on me. These two were/will be the last two I try. Well maybe not, I might try again, but I feel bad. I haven't watered this guy in over 6 weeks and he's rotting. I just don't get it. Oh well.

The carnivorous plants are doing well aside from two new ones I'm having possible major issues with. I posted about it in another post. But all the others are doing great! The problematic nepenthes is fine. He never got worse and is, even off season here, throwing out new pitchers. He's gained maybe 6-8 new leaves on the two vines and maybe 2-4 new on the basals. I got two new pitcher plants and both are doing well. One is in the front window with the cactus and succulents and seems to love that window and the sun. The other is in the same window as the original one and is happy too. He might be moved to my art room window so he has a big space to himself and we can see out the big dining room window better once he gets big. The sundews are doing well and making lots of dew and growing new leaves and blooms. The butterworts are all growing nicely (aside from the two).

Now I'm not sure I should post here anymore since I'm no longer a windowsill grower with my orchids, but I'm also not quite up to the huge light displays or greenhouses. But I will anyway I think. I might try to figure out a window to use for some of them yet. Just not sure how or when. But here's the update after being in this house for a few months now.

So the orchids are doing great! Even the one with light sunburn up the whole side is growing nicely and sent up a spike recently. The ency is still in bloom and still has two sheaths! The psychopsis still won't spike yet for me, keeps growing leaves and roots and is super happy though. I keep talking to it, encouraging it but it's doing it's own thing. I got a slipper to rebloom!! First time I've been able to do that! So excited! And most of the phals are in spike right now! It's going to be quite a show! Even the schilleriana sent up a spike finally!!!!!!! Oh I'm so excited! It's been 3 years!

I'll post photos soon! Right now I'm off to water them!

[estación seca]

Almost all Lithops come from commercial growers with mealy bugs hidden in the crack between the leaves. They have been knocked down by repeated pesticide use, but not eliminated. Then, during the most vulnerable time of year - low light, cool temperatures - your Lithops succumb.

Lithops are very easy from seed! 99% of all the mesembs / ice plants are very easy from seed. You have the skills needed already. Plants you grow from seed don't come with mealy bugs. Although adults should be watered only in the summer, seedlings are best sprouted in fall or winter, if enough light can be provided, and kept growing for a year and a half before their first dormancy. They can stay in the seedling pot for 1-3 years before being moved to something bigger. Many reach flowering size in their 3rd season.

Take a foam coffee cup. 6 ounces is fine. Don't punch any holes yet. Fill 3/4 with washed builder's sand. Don't add any organic material. Fill it with tap water until the sand is submerged. Scatter your Lithops seed on the water. Sow them thickly. Set it someplace with very bright light. I can sprout them outside in winter Arizona sun; they will also be fine under the brightest of indoor grow lights, or even not so bright indoor grow lights. Cool winter house conditions are best if you get much frost outside, but warmer houses are OK too.

Let the water evaporate down, but never let the top of the sand dry completely. The tiny seedlings can't handle any drying out for several months. Now use a spray bottle to keep the surface continually glistening wet. If it dries too fast for you to keep up, cover the cup with a transparent hat cut from the top of a beverage bottle, including the screw cap, or a piece of transparent plastic wrap, or a sandwich baggie. You can remove the covering when the seedlings are a month old.

The Lithops will be up in a few days to a week or so, depending on the temperature. You will have a lawn of brilliant green bubbles. Just keep them quite moist. If you used any organic matter in your soil you will have nasty algae and moss choking your plants; this is why you should only use sand.

After a few weeks begin fertilizing. Use any commercial water-soluble fertilizer, like Peters or Miracle Gro, at 1/8 strength with each watering.

After they have been up for 2-3 months, cut some holes in the foam cup with a knife. Now you can water them the usual way, taking care not to dislodge them. Some people use a spray bottle for watering all their Lithops.

In the summer, put them someplace where they get very bright light, but they won't be big enough to handle full summer sun until their 2nd or 3rd summer. Birds love to peck Lithops to shreds, and squirrels eat them, so take precautions before it happens.

Don't transplant them out of the seedling container until the 2nd spring at the earliest. It is fine to leave them in the seedling container until it is so packed it looks like a white ice cream cone with a big scoop of green ice cream.

When you do transplant them out, don't use organic-based potting mixes. Use soil from your garden, or sand. Lithops do best in tall, narrow containers to accommodate their deep roots. Lots of people grow them in shallow dishes, but I find they do better with a deep pot. You can also plant a number of individuals in a standard deep clay pot.

The very best source of cactus and succulent seed in the US is
Mesa Garden in New Mexico,
owned by Steve Brack. Look down the home page to the Mesemb list. It is sorted alphabetically. A packet of Lithops seed is $1.20, and 100 seeds are $4.20. Right now Steve is in the process of putting together the 2016 seed list, so you may need to wait until that is posted; this is usually the first week of January, an event awaited eagerly by succulentists.

[gardengirl13]

Oh I need to try this!! I don't really have the ability to grow them outside at all though. My front window gets hammered by summer sun though, would that be enough? Our summers are humid and wet sometimes too cool for something like this I think. The front window does get like 5-6 hours of full sun in the am (at least in aug/sept it did, we moved in in mid-aug) Right now it gets about 4 hours of slightly weaker sun. Once I sow them can I keep the cup on this window with a grow light over it? Then once they come up just keep it in that window without the light? Also is aquarium sand ok to use? I'm thinking of switching my small tank from gravel to sand and might be buying some.

[estación seca]

The answer to all the above is Yes.

You will have to be careful in the spring that they don't get sunburned as the sun strengthens. Finer sand is better; the seeds are tiny, and you don't want them falling through the cracks (literally, not figuratively this time.)

I wouldn't use decorative aquarium sand. Something intended for aquaria with plants should be OK. The plants will extract some minerals from the sand, so you don't want something like pure silica sand with no trace minerals. I buy a 40 pound / 18kg sack of masonry sand at Home Depot for my mesemb, cactus and bulb seed sprouting adventures. I also use this sand in some of my aquaria, after careful washing to remove the dust. The seedlings like having the dust.

[gardengirl13]

I'll have to look at HD then, the aquarium sand is pretty clean, not sure if it does or doesn't have minerals. I do grow aquarium plants in it though. But use ferts.

Also on a side note have you ever used gritty mix on houseplants? I keep hearing about it and tried it. They all almost died. Really quite bad. I switched everyone but the snake plant back and everyone is super happy again. I'm just using my normal potting soil again. I know it means watering has to be just top watering not like I do with the orchids and succulents/cactus, but they seem better this way. I just can't do the gritty mix at all. The weight is too much too. I had a small ficus in a small pot and it was just too heavy to bring to the sink to water. (I have health issues so I have to keep my health up more so then my plants, but I do love caring for them and won't give them up unless I really go downhill.) All my cactus and succulents LOVE the gritty mix though. I feel bad going back to regular potting soil. I have no clue why!?! ha ha!!

Also after we moved Phil (the Ficus) pitched a fit, which was expected, dropping a tons of leaves. He's now doing well and putting out new leaves and seems happy. But now has a weird shiny coating on his leaves, old and new ones. Like someone sprayed oil on them and they dried with drips??? I don't get it!? He's not close enough to the kitchen. When you wipe them they don't come off. I'm going to sit here tonight while watching some christmas movies and wipe each leaf with a wet cloth. When I wipe it seems to come off if I get them really wet while doing it. I originally thought maybe it was from his sap from the leaf shedding, but it's not that I don't think since even the highest leaves have it. I've only ever sprayed him with rain water, which he's watered with, and distilled water from the pitcher plant near him. No one does anything with my plants. I just have no clue what did this? He is near a heat/AC vent but it doesn't blow on him, I bought diverters to send it into the room instead of down. He was moved about 6' from the window when we had the windows replaced, I was thinking maybe they sprayed something on it, but I don't think that could be it? But maybe? Can window cleaner do that to leaves? Sorry to ask so much here!!

[estación seca]

I don't know what you mean by gritty mix. Non-bog plants need air at their roots. Heavy mixes dry out much more slowly than light mixes. For any non-aquatic or non-bog plant, you want a combination of pot size and potting mix such that the plant would dry out completely within a week to 10 days after a watering. I'm not saying all plants need to dry out, just that this is the optimum pot size / soil density combination.

Plants in heavy mixes generally need smaller containers or they stay soaked too long, and plant roots don't get the air they need.

Sand retains a lot of water when added to potting mixes. It does not improve drainage unless you are using very large sand, almost gravel, and you insure there are particles of many different sizes in the container. Sand was used by the legendary English gardeners of old for rooting cuttings that needed to stay damp but not wet.

I really like large-particle horticultural perlite for reducing the weight of pots. As mentioned I will use up to 90% perlite for large pots. Small-particle perlite, as a substantial proportion of the mix, stays way too wet for way too long to suit me, except for wet-growing plants.

A lot of common houseplants are not terrestrial plants in habitat, but epiphytes or forest leaf litter dwellers that can be grown in loose sawdust-based mixes. Which of your plants died in the new mix?

Snake plants in habitat in Africa tend to grow in desert areas with sandy or heavy clay soils, in full sun or under deciduous shrubs, and with long dry seasons. They can grow in a black plastic 1 gallon nursery container on a concrete patio receiving full Arizona summer sun if well-watered and adapted slowly so they don't sunburn.

A healthy Ficus benjamina (weeping fig, a common house plant) has extremely shiny leaves, especially the new leaves. Less happy plants have dull leaves. Ficus are famous for dropping leaves whenever anything changes drastically, such as when repotting, or when moving from a summer outside to a winter inside.

[gardengirl13]

Oh sorry I haven't seen your reply! Gritty mix is a mix of fine soils, it's 1:1:1 of turface, granite and extra small pine bark all the same size or so. So far the cactus and succulents and Plissken (the snake plant- yes that's his name ha ha!) love it. the plant that died immediately, like less then 2 weeks, was a new ficus I bought. I wanted to test it out before using it on Phil. Glad I did!! After the first week or 9 days or so he dropped every single leaf so I moved him back into a normal peat based potting mix. He never perked back up. I tried to nurse him since his stems seemed firm still, but he just kept drying out and then died. I had another plant in it as well and when it started wilting I moved it into potting mix as well. Even with watering more often they still were not happy. I think I might have been doing something wrong but I'm not sure.

But with Phil the shiny leaves were not new leaves or healthy leaves. Well they were, but this is different. This is like spots. Like something landed on him. Like he was sprayed with oil from a spray bottle, but it dried hard. Like lacquer or something!!! It's so weird! I can get it off if I use a very wet washcloth and wipe every leaf. He's not near the kitchen but if it was oil it would wipe off easily. He does get a kick-back spray from my misting the nepenthes next to him, but the nep doesn't have this on it's leaves. I used distilled for that. I will occasionally spray him with rain water when it's super dry in the house.

Now the sad part that I'm freaking out over even more! Last week he lost a ton of leaves not yellowing or green like he's pitching another fit, this is drying up crunchy leaves! I just couldn't wait! I HAD to repot him ASAP. I was planning on doing the repotting this spring or summer when I redo the other plants. But this was an emergency. I did this on Sunday and I trimmed off some drying branches and a few smaller healthier ones. his roots seemed fine, bigger then the last time I repotted him which was probably WAAAYYYY too long ago! I think it's been three years this summer. Maybe 4! The soil seemed ok, and super dry! I thought I might have been overwatering him, but I'm thinking I must be underwatering. I was trying to be more careful with him due to the move, but I'll now water a bit more. I tied up one side of him to try to get him to grow a bit better. The way he's growing is one direction. He HATES it when I turn him. He wants what he wants, period! Stubborn thing!!!!!! Today he's looking ok. Still getting the spots on the leaves, but I can't say that I didn't miss a few when cleaning him last time. No more dried leaves though. And those appeared very quickly (like 15-20 of them in a couple days time) so that's good news! I will fertilize him with seaweed in 2 weeks or so after he heals a bit from the repot.

As for all the orchids, I know I've said in the past I'm not a window grower anymore, but I don't know where else to post this as it's kind of turned into a journal of sorts.

Anna bloomed!!!! Not for long, only 2-3 weeks, but hey she bloomed again for the first time in 4 years!! Still no new leaves though. The cocleata is still in bloom and has new buds coming, and also two sheathes that haven't done anything in months but are still sitting there waiting. The apple blossom has two flowers and a few more buds coming! smells the whole room up!!! I LOVE that little girl!! I have 10 phals in bloom and 3 in spike. The one slipper is still in bloom too. I was a little worried moving from the windows to under lights, especially since it's not a pro type set-up with huge lights and tents and whatnot. I have the metal shelves, the trays (which I just posted about in the beginners area- having some issues with them) the I used incandescent light strips from fish tanks that hold two bulbs and have LEDs from Ray in them. It's harder and harder to find those strips but I like Rays lights so I got a few hopefully they'll last a long time. I did put up some aluminum foil and will get mylar at some point to help increase the light for the higher light guys at the bottom. It's only been 6 months so we'll see how everything goes!

I do also use those LED lights for my carnivorous plants and they seem to like it ok. The sundews have tinges or red, the helio has gifted me with 3-4 new pitchers and the pings seem fine too. Aside from issues which I'm dealing with which may be bad. I'm not sure. I've got that on another forum though.