Raise your hand if your houseplants don’t have scale. Anyone, anyone? If they don’t, I’m willing to bet that either Mother Nature loves lucky-you especially (though she may have another plague in store, beware); you have only four houseplants, all begonias; or your plants have been infested with scale insects in the past and you have somehow managed to banish it from your house. If your plants do have scale, don’t be embarrassed. You’re in good company (says me).

I freely admit to having disgusting scale on a few of my plants at home. (For Mr. McGregor’s Daughter’s houseplant census, I also admit to having upwards of 85 plants inside my approximately 1000 sq. foot house…) And I’m sorry to say that ever since we stopped using systemic pesticides, a few scale have found their way back into the greenhouse here and there. If you’re not already familiar with these sapsuckers, scale generally look like crusty brown or waxy yellowish scabs and are often found on the underside of leaves along the midrib, tucked into leaf axils or along the stem. (Mealy bug is also a type of scale which resembles sticky grey cotton goo.)

Scale life-cycle in a nutshell (ha!): Eggs hatch under the protective shell of the female and start their life out as “crawlers”. They don’t travel far or fast – but that would explain how they get from plant to plant especially in a cheek-by-jowl living arrangement. Once they’ve found their spot they lose their legs and settle in for a suck. After molting and morphing into their adult selves, male scale grow wings but lose the ability to eat (no mouth). Males use their day or two window of opportunity to search for and mate with females. Females meanwhile develop a crusty protective shell from their castoff molts.

I have never noticed any flyers, eggs or “crawlers” but I guess I haven’t paid very close attention. I do always notice a fresh crop of immature scale (the small yellowish ones), their honeydew poop and the opportunistic sooty mold that sticks to it. I periodically – probably once a week at home – put plants in the sink for a bath and I go after the individual scale with an insecticidal fingernail.

The recommended treatment (besides systemic pesticides, or introducing another insect into your house to eat the scale – which might be worth a try) is to scrape them off and give the plant a dilute soap and/or horticultural oil wash and a water rinse. But take care to test your chosen method before treating the whole plant. Ferns, for one, are notoriously sensitive to anything but a gentle fingernail and room-temp water, and citrus don’t love oil.

So, fess up now – do your houseplants have scale? What do you do?

I’m having a really hard time doing my job today. Gail has set an all-moved-into-the-greenhouse deadline of October 15 and that means I need to get busy now digging up the tender plants and loading the cart with container plants and bringing them all inside. But those plants are still so beautiful outside that I can’t help but drag my feet and find everything else to do instead. But it must be done. If only there was a frost warning in the forecast, (thank the stars there isn’t!) I’m sure I’d move at steadily fast pace and feel justified in breaking up favorite combinations. But even though a lot of our tender plants can take the cold and even light frosts some of them, it’s less shocking to their little systems to come inside before we turn on the heat. The same goes for houseplants – especially any that won’t have a relatively humid greenhouse to live in over the winter. If you haven’t brought your plants in yet, consider doing it soon so that they can begin to acclimatize to life on the inside.

I have to admit that there is a part of me that likes this particular transition in one way and I’m even secretly glad to have the time to do it right. There’s almost nothing I love better than grooming plants and potting them up. Taking care of the container plants doesn’t even feel like work. Truth be told, I have a slightly perverse tendency to put that off to do something else that might feel more important simply because it is less enjoyable somehow. But potting up and grooming plants before or as they come in for the winter is really important no matter how Zen blissful. Take the time now to clean off dead leaves, prune and shape, weed, check for critters, and give your plants a mildly soapy bath if they’re like mine at home and covered in scale and sooty mold. And re-pot them now to save making a mess of scattered potting soil inside later. As for fertilizing, (a very rare treat for my plants at home, alas) the rule of thumb is to quit feeding by Halloween and resume when the days get appreciably longer triggering new a new growth cycle – usually February or March.

Have you moved your houseplants and and/or tender stock plants back inside yet? Do you have any tips to share?

The other day Gail brought in the new terrarium book  – which happens to be called The New Terrarium: Creating Beautiful Displays for Plants and Nature by Tovah Martin.  I haven’t read a word of it yet but Kindra Clineff’s photos set off a whole new lust in me.  I will just have to figure out a way to make room in my house for more plants under glass…  Meanwhile, Gail also brought in her cloche collection with the idea of decorating the mansion’s dining room table for a photo shoot on Monday. So yesterday we spent a little of the energy born from inspiration working on new terrariums.  (I want to keep them!)

Because these are meant to be temporary displays we played a little fast and loose with the plant material.  The ferns are just fronds tucked in soaked oasis wrapped in plastic – Gail has performed this trick in the past and says the fronds will last a good 3 weeks.  The campanula, pansies and alyssum are planted (jammed) in potting soil and should last a week or so – maybe longer with decent light, cool temperatures and grooming.  The moss and cuttings of baby’s tears (Soleirolia soleirolii) tucked in around the plants would probably last much longer.

There must be something about putting plants and things under or within glass that precious-ifies them.  Maybe it’s like a frame around a painting – it turns them into objet d’arte and definitely makes me want to go in for a closer look.  Have you seen the new terrarium book yet?  Are you inspired?  (Wouldn’t these make the best Easter decorations – à la Martha?)

I think it’s safe to say that everyone who has ever set foot in the greenhouse makes an immediate beeline for the citrus plants.  The Citrus limon ‘Ponderosa’ (a.k.a. American Wonder Lemon) definitely has its own gravitational pull.  The lemons are about the size of Jupiter and hang on the plant, bowing the branches, seemingly indefinitely.  Kids (of all ages) also swarm the Calamondin orange (x Citrofortunella or Citrus mitis) because it’s almost always adorned with zillions of oranges that are as comparatively tiny as the Ponderosa lemons are enormous.  The Ponderosa lemon began as a chance seedling grown by George Bowman of Maryland in the late 1880’s and has been commercially available since the turn of the 20th century.  — I suspect that the legendary Logee’s Greenhouse specimen is at least that old.  The Calamondin is a Southeast Asian hybrid and our own tree is over 40 years old.

Citruses are not the easiest houseplants – and given the plight of California citrus trees which are being threatened by a bacteria that causes a “greening disease“, and Florida citruses which periodically succumb to drops in temperature, they might not be the easiest garden plants either.  Logee’s recommends temperatures above 60° in the winter (although many can take it as cold as 40°), to water when the soil appears dry and fertilize sparingly.  My Citrus aurantifolia ‘Key Lime’ evidently can’t tolerate temperatures below 60° throughout the winter which would explain why it looks as stressed out as it does  – even our warmest greenhouse, where it is currently recouping from pure torture at my house, is chillier than that at night.  It, like the rest of our citrus plants, is also plagued by scale (a tiny sucking insect protected by a tough brown shell) which produces a sticky honeydew poop that is a terrific host for sooty mold.  We treat the plants by washing the leaves, stems and branches by hand with insecticidal or dilute dish soap.  We must be doing something right this winter because we haven’t washed the lemon in ages and (knock wood) it’s never looked so healthy.  Occasionally the leaves on our citruses turn yellow which indicates an iron deficiency and possibly that they’ve been over watered.  Both are problems are treatable.

Do you have any citrus?  Are they a challenge for you as well?

I keep getting distracted from my intention to talk about some of our favorite houseplants so without further ado, I give you Aspidistra eliator – the Cast Iron Plant.  The common name pretty much says it all.  This is probably the toughest houseplant on any planet.  It’s also probably one of the most boring, ridiculed and difficult to find to buy.  It’s an original passalong plant lurking in a corner of your best friend’s back bedroom.

Aspidistras can tolerate temperatures ranging from 28 to 100 degrees F, low light and air pollution making them ideal plants for any inner city cave dweller.  They also thrive on benign neglect (water when the soil looks dry) and aren’t pest magnets (unless you count kittens) making them the perfect plant for anyone with a multicolored thumb.

Aspidistras, native to woodlands of China, the Himalayas and Japan, became a requisite dark corner decoration during the Victorian era.  Since then, its popularity has waned but in certain circles, especially in the UK, they are still a familiar and occasionally publicly mocked member of the household.  Aspidistra was an emblem of mediocrity in George Orwell’s novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying and a character called “Uncle”, The Rangdo of Arg (animated by Kenny Baker, also known for playing R2D2) in a weird 1980’s British game show called The Adventure Game.

When Uncle is ready to be shared with friends and neighbors, he lets you know by busting out of the pot.  Aspidistras increase slowly but steadily by rhizomes (fleshy stems just under and at the soil level) and are easily divided with a hori-hori, a hacksaw or your burliest kitchen knife.  Remember, as you grab and hack, these plants are tough-as-nails, indestructible as a daylily.  Rumor has it that they produce a prettyish tulip like flower near the soil that’s pollinated by tiny terrestrial crustaceans (according to wikipedia) but I’ve never seen one.  But then again my plant is tucked in a corner, molested by kittens and I hardly ever gaze deeply at it.  It’s just the best houseplant!

Do you have a cast iron plant?  Does it have a name?

Depending on where you live, it can take a treasure hunt to find something blooming during the middle of winter.  Some people go south to find color – the Caribbean, for instance, would be a brilliant treasure trove right about now.  Other people (like me) stay close to home and go out to greenhouses to find blooms.  And we’re the lucky ones who can sometimes bring blooming things back home.

Winter in a cold climate is tough season for houseplants though.  Most indoor heat is too dry for humidity loving plants to thrive.  There are things we can do to mitigate the dryness though, and our bodies (the insides of our noses, elbow skin…) might appreciate the effort as much as the plants.  Place bowls or kettles of water on stoves/heaters/radiators – you’d be surprised how quickly the water evaporates.  Keep your plants in dishes filled with pebbles and a little water – only make sure that the plant is not left in standing water unless that’s the culture it prefers.  And get more plants!  The more plants you have, the more humid your home will be because plants transpire out the water they have taken in.  That’s why walking into a full greenhouse feels so good this time of year.  Sounds skeevy to say it but we crave plants’ moist breath.

Some plants like these Camellias really need more humidity that the average warm home can provide.  Logee’s Greenhouse website recommends 50% humidity and nights below 60 degrees (down to 35) for the plants to be healthy and set buds.  Other than that they’re easy – they only need partial sun, water when dry and they don’t want fertilizer.  (That’s my kind of plant.)

Gail and I and a friend took a quick last minute trip to Logee’s in Danielson, CT earlier this week.  Even if you live with or work in a greenhouse like we do, it’s good to get out and breathe in another.  And that one is amazing.  It’s full of venerable specimens and ginormous stock plants growing, flowering and fruiting like miracles out of the floor.  If you can get there, do!  And, of course, if you’re near to here, you’re more than welcome to stop by our chilly but deliciously humid greenhouses for a breather too – the door is open!  (Figuratively speaking – it’s still wicked cold outside!)

Many thanks as always to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for keeping us searching for blooms the middle of every month.  Where did you find blooms this month?

Terrariums are (still) cool.  Last year I wrote a post (Terrariums are cool (again)) on how I make – and became addicted to – terrariums.  And if you were inspired then to make one (or ten), they might be in need of a little rehabilitation by now.  One of the coolest things about terrariums is that you can ignore them once the initial fascination wears off.  And that’s kind of the whole point:  Terrariums should be able to take care of themselves for a while.  But then there does come a point when we need to pay them some attention again.

In order to be truly neglect-able terrariums need to have the right balance of light, air and plant material (among other things like soil and drainage).  These terrariums (above) dried out completely.  According to their owners, the tops were never opened so they really “shouldn’t have dried out – it’s not our fault!”.  Look familiar?  I suspect that they were not given enough light.  The light requirement is a delicate issue — too much sun and the terrarium cooks like a little oven.  With no sun at all, the plants transpire too slowly to produce the condensation that waters the soil – and without a vigilant gardener adding water and changing its location, everything crispifies.  There was no resuscitating these terrariums.  I started over from scratch and I’ll give them back to their owners for another go at neglect in a sunnier spot.  Winter sun is generally weak enough for placement near a west or south window if not right in it.  And I keep some of my mason jar terrariums on an east facing windowsill all year round.  A sunbeam at some point in the day is important for creating foggy condensation.

This terrarium thrived in a college dorm room window that got late afternoon sun.  According to Gail’s son, it was a curiosity and conversation piece – everyone thought there was something … else … living in it.  But as you can see the plants had gone beyond friendly competition and were strangling each other.  Look familiar?  Gail removed the overtaking Selaginella fern which had started out as a tiny cutting; the 10 strawberry begonias (Saxifraga stolonifera) which started with one; she divided the creeping fig (Ficus pumila) and the button fern (Pellaea rotundifolia) and ended up creating a whole new terrarium from pieces of the old.  If you check on it, a little trim of overgrowth now and then would save you having to start over.  But I really think half the fun of having terrariums is making them – I just adore the look of a freshly planted jar.  (And that’s when my craving kicks in all over again and have to make or redo at least 4 more.)

Do you have any terrariums?  Are they thriving or suffering?  Are you as addicted to them as we are?

Stay tuned for more posts about houseplants.  – Anyone care to join me on the topic?  Create a link and leave comments, if you do!