Winter is time to turn your attention to indoor gardening. Don’t overwater the bromeliads
The end of January is a great time to make plans for your spring and summer garden but also to take a peek outdoors to see what plants add color during the darker time of year.
Trees with beautiful bark stand out in winter, so this is a good time to notice paperbark maple, Jacquemonti birch and the red twig and yellow twig dogwoods. Coral bark maples are king for bark color in January, and if you don’t want to check out plants with winter color outdoors, visit a home and garden show this week to really hype up your spring fever.
Go ahead and prune a few branches of your leafless trees and shrubs to bring indoors for early forcing. Newly pruned but colorful branches also can be added to your empty porch or patio containers.
Indoor gardeners can rejoice and restock this week as nurseries and greenhouses refill their shelves with houseplants to bridge the gap between winter and spring. In honor of the growing popularity of indoor plants and my houseplant growing seminar the first day of February (10 a.m. Saturday at Windmill Gardens), here are the most asked questions about blooming plants:
Q. I have enjoyed my African Violet for years and want to thank you for the tip you gave me about getting it to rebloom — you wrote in a column to water African Violets with water that had been used to boil an egg — explaining that the calcium from the egg shell would boost them into bloom. I wanted to let you know that this worked well. Now my problem. I have a new African Violet sprouting from the side of my main plant. Both the mother and this new baby plant look healthy, but, of course, the symmetry of the main plant is ruined with the new sprout growing on its side. My question is can I cut off this new plant, and, if so, will it have roots and survive on its own? — J.G., Sumner
A. Congratulations on the new arrival and your ever-blooming African Violet. The answer is yes, when a new plant sprouts alongside the mother, you can use a knife to slice it off and re-pot it as a dividend.
Do not cut into the stem of the mother plant and do not give up if the new plant has no roots at all once you remove it. African Violets are often started from leaf cuttings, so they have the ability to grow a new root system from a segment of stem or leaf. Poke your baby violet into potting soil and add extra humidity by covering the young plant with a vented plastic bag. Do not let the soil dry out while new roots are forming.
If the plant survives you can brag about your green thumb. I am giving you 50-50 odds that this rootless offspring will survive and grow roots. Gardening is an adventure, so don’t be afraid to try something new.
Q. Help! My orchid has some sort of disease or insect as I can see small, white, fuzzy dots and brown bumps in the cracks and on the leaves. The flowers look good and the plant still has buds, so I don’t want to throw it out. Do you know what this growth could be? — P, via email
A. Thanks for sending me a photo of the problem. Those bumps on your orchid are the scale insect, a common invader of houseplants.
You most likely have the cure for scale in your medicine cabinet now and don’t need to buy anything. Just dip a cotton swap into rubbing alcohol and apply to each bump. The protective, waxy or cottony covering will then be destroyed and the scale will dry up.
You will need to wash the leaves in warm water and continue to check for new outbreaks as most likely there will be scale eggs left after you get rid of the adults. The alcohol treatment is hard on the plant, so repeat about every 10 days rather than every few days. Scale can spread from plant to plant, so keep your infected orchid away from other houseplants.
Tip: Before purchasing any houseplant, but especially an orchid, check the underside and cracks of the leaves for small bumps to avoid bringing scale into your home.
Q. I love the tropical look of bromeliads and keep buying them to use indoors for winter color. My problem is that after a few weeks in my home, bromeliads start to get soft and brown near the base of the leaves. I have tried moving them to a brighter location, thinking they need more sun, but then I think they got too much light as the leaves turned yellow. So what do you think I am doing wrong? — M.M., Renton
A. Houseplants die for many reasons, but the most common cause of death for indoor bromeliads is too much water.
The cup shaped leaves of the bromeliad are designed to capture and hold moisture, so watering should be as easy as filling the center of the plant with water then letting the roots dry out a bit before filling the center cup of the plant with water again.
The plant prefers that you use rainwater or distilled water, as sometimes water from the faucet will be high in salts that damage the foliage. You can avoid this by dumping out the water in the center after a few days so it doesn’t rot.
The clue you gave was saying that your plants were getting soft and brown. This suggests that you are watering too often. Stop watering the roots, just fill the leaf cup with water. If you must use tap water, then dump out the water after two days. Wait for the soil to feel dry to the touch. You may only need to water your bromeliads once every two weeks.
Q. My bromeliad plant bloomed for awhile but now the flowering spike is turning brown. Do I cut this off? Will it bloom again? —T., via email
A. Get ready with the kibble because you’ve got some pups in your future.
Bromeliads flower when the mother plant dies to produce new baby bromeliads called pups. Cut off the faded blooming stem with a sharp knife close to the base of the plant. Now water when the soil is dry and wait.
A new side shoot or even a whole litter of pups will appear in a few weeks around the dead mother plant. Once these pups are weaned or grow roots (usually when they are one third the size of the mother plant), you can pot them up and wait for them to flower, so the whole cycle can repeat itself again.
Learn from Marianne
▪ Tacoma Home and Garden Show, Jan. 23–26 at the Tacoma Dome. She will speak every day at 2 p.m. except for Saturday when the talk is at 1 p.m. Topics are “Healthy Houseplants Healthy Home: How to grow houseplants in any room including sedums, orchids and African Violets” and “Four Seasons of Color: Creating the Year-Round Landscape.” For discount tickets and more info go to www.tacomahomeandardenshow.com.
▪ Feb. 1 , 10 a.m., Windmill Gardens in Sumner. Learn how to grow and design with hellebores, blooming houseplants, indoor dish gardens and more. Visit www.windmillgarden.com or phone 253-863-5843.