Inside Urban Green

"Hidden Mysteries" Of Plants Revealed Before Your Very Eyes!

Click to enlarge.

What is a "hidden mysteries of plants - their roots!" to clay pot gardeners is an everyday sight to growers smart enough to grow plants in clear planters like these recycled pop/soda bottle planters.

As these photos demonstrate, plant roots do not have an aversion to light. It is an urban myth and a horticultural myth. Ah, sweet mystery of (plant) life.

There is no better way to learn and teach plant science and physiology than growing plants in clear sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) like these. You can clearly see the condition of the plants root system and the status of soil moisture. It is no mystery with these planters.

Opaque clay and plastic pots are plant killers in the hands of many neophyte gardeners because of the vitally important "hidden mysteries".

Following is the "hidden mysteries" excerpt from my email inbox.

Hawaiian Dwarf Umbrella Tree Growing In A SIP

Click for a larger view on Flickr.

This Dwarf Hawaiian Umbrella Tree (Schefflera arboricola) grows in a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) made from an upcycled (repurposed) UTZ pretzel container. It is shown without a decorative container (cachepot) for illustration purposes. You could make a smaller version using a 2 or 3 liter  pop/soda bottle SIP.

Note that this post is about plants growing indoors (houseplants) under subdued light.

Dwarf Schefflera and Ficus benjamina plants are the easiest plants to maintain as indoor tabletop (bonsai style) miniature trees.

Plants like this thrive on three vital essentials, two of which are provided by sub-irrigated planters (SIPs):

1. Adequate light (a foot-candle or lux light meter is the best method of measuring light).

A Soda Bottle SIP With An On-Off Switch

This is an original working prototype of a sub-irrigated planter (SIP) device I invented about thirty years ago. With little belief in the receptivity of the marketplace at the time, I chose not to patent and market it. Had I gotten a patent it would now be expired. Eventually someone did discover the same idea and I believe there is a patent.

The objective was to design a more cost effective and universal vacuum-sensor system that would work in any watertight container. The system works. I used if for a wide array of plants in my home, including specimen Ficus benjamina trees.

With advances in plastic molding technology, perhaps it is worth producing these things today. Anyone interested?

Sock It To Me!

Recycled socks make excellent soda bottle SIP covers ("cloth cachepots"). This one year old Ficus benjamina cost next to nothing. The plant was propagated from cuttings rooted in the same planter about one year ago. The soda bottle SIPs are free and you help the environment. The polished pebbles cost just pennies.

There are single socks and socks with holes just waiting for a higher calling in life. This is it! It's their big chance! You can help them. 

Incidentally, the Ficus is the same houseplant shown in this prior post.

Clearly The Best Way To Grow Houseplants

The same plant (right-hand photo) converted to expanded clay pebble hydroculture.

I probably haven’t heard all of the lame reasons for growing houseplants in clay or opaque plastic pots but I’ve heard a lot of them over the years. Pretzel logic and ignorance know no bounds.

By now, you likely know that I advocate repurposed (recycled) soda/pop bottle planters as clearly (pun intended) the best way to grow houseplants. They are also the best plant science learning aid that I know of.

Hydro-conversion, Hydroculture How Toos

These Ficus benjamina trees are growing in expanded clay pebbles (aka hydroculture). The planters are bottom sections of recycled pop bottles. They are what would normally be the reservoir section of the pop bottle planters. They could just as well be housed in any other recycled plastic container. My preference, however, is clear plastic so I can see exactly what is going on. 

With hydroculture, there is no need for a wick and reservoir. The pebbles provide all the structure that is needed. The pebbles are porous and provide good capillary action. There is also enough space between them to create a sufficient supply of water (and oxygen) in the planter. 

Incidentally, these little Ficus trees are in recovery from near death when they were in temporary storage last year. Sometimes it's easier to grow a new plant versus reviving one that has gone through trauma. It can take a long time to recover. These little trees are now on their way to full recovery. I'll post photos of them again somewhere down the road. 

Pop Bottle Planters - In my experience, it works better to use just the recycled pop bottle bottoms when planting in expanded clay pebbles. The neck of the bottle is too narrow to get good wicking action when using pebbles. 

Six Month Old Ficus Produces a New Tree

Only 6 months old from rooted cuttings.

The Ficus benjamina above was propagated from a small bundle of cuttings. They were rooted in a sub-irrigated (aka "self-watering) planter (SIP) made from a repurposed soda (pop) bottle only six months ago.

I pruned it today and concealed the soda bottle SIP inside a ceramic cachepot from IKEA as shown below.

The cuttings will be propagated the same way and produce yet another tree. So the cycle continues. There are now seventy trees in the collection and counting.

Only 6 months old from rooted cuttings

The Tomorrow Garden From Valcent

What a cool product, but not available here in the U.S....at least not yet. We're going to hear a lot more about the U.K. company Valcent in the coming year. Stay tuned!

via www.youtube.com

The Tomorrow Garden™ range of micropropagated (edit. aka tissue culture) plant kits is unique: the plants are packed in bags with nutrient gel and supplied complete with compost, biodegradable pot and growing biome. They are supplied in award-winning gift packaging.

The next step for this Tomorrow Garden African Violet should be a repurposed pop/soda bottle sub-irrigation planter (SIP).

Capillary Action Cactus

Conventional wisdom says that you need a clay pot to grow cactus. As we know, conventional wisdom is often wrong as it is in this case. This clay pot was previously home to this Birds Nest Sansevieria. Regular readers of this blog know for sure that I would not grow any plant in a drain hole pot. No Martha devote here. I am, however, a big fan of recycled pop/soda bottle planters.

The cactus (is it an Echinocactus?) is living in the clay pot but it's growing in a recycled pop/soda bottle sub-irrigated planter (SIP, aka "self-watering). I can hear the chorus from the peanut gallery saying, "You can't do that”. They continue by saying that self watering pots are only for moisture loving plants like Peace Lilies (Spathiphyllum). Not true.

This cactus has been growing in a pop bottle SIP since September 2007. Using the weight method of watering (using a scale) it has been amazing to observe how little water it uses. Think biofeedback. Use a scale and your plants can communicate with you.

There is no way that you can feed water to a plant like this using the top watering drench and drain method. Using capillary action, the plant receives water with science lab accuracy tuned to its precise needs related to its environment.

I wonder how many cacti and succulents are killed each year by drain hole watering malpractice. A more significant question is how many plants of all types are killed each year by this seemingly intuitive but malpractice.

Ficus Trees Multiplied

As you can probably tell, these Ficus trees are not on the floor of a greenhouse. Look below after the jump.

There are now more than 50 of them growing in the CuGreen plant lab. It is rather amazing to know that these desktop trees were propagated from four small bags of cuttings starting about a year and a half ago. Read the back story here.

There is no special equipment here. The light gardens are Inter-Metro type storage racks from Costco and the artificial lighting is supplied from inexpensive shop lights (4’) using ordinary 40-watt fluorescent tubes. The racks are located in east facing windows so they also receive natural light during the day.

The planters are made from recycled pop/soda bottles. To encourage rooting they are covered with clear plastic deli containers to start. It typically takes 3-4 weeks to root the cuttings and the deli containers are then removed.

These seven Sansevieria plants were propagated using the same system. Who knows how many new plants will be propagated from these plants over the next year or so. I will post the progress.