plant tips

Pudina or Mint plant was doing fine untill a few weeks ago, then all leaves started going yellow and falling off :-( I watered more, watered less, fertilizer..more sun.. no effect.
When u try everything and still your potted plant doesnt seem happy, its time to see if your plant has become completely root bound, meaning the roots of the plant have grown so much that they have fillled up the entire pot. No place in the pot for mud. The plant has grown too big for the pot, So repot into bigger pot or cut out the roots a little( this is scary I didnt actually do this) and pot back into same pot.
Pudina plant is doing well in the new bigger pot now.. all yellows returned back to Green and lot of new leaves! ye!

Money tree!! grr dont move this bugger. I thought it will get more sun in the other window. moved it and it dropped all its leaves! getting new ones tho! I read on the net that this guy doesnot like to be moved or to be repotted. I was tempted to repot as its a huge tree in a small pot. apparently this is how it likes it. now its back in its old place.. new leaves coming up, let us see...

Maiden hair fern- It was a nice green bush shrub, but very soon wilted and was left with absolutely no leaves at all.. Reason?  It doesnot like to be sprayed with mist :-( I thought ferns like moisture. but this one hates it. and it needs lot of watering. Most plants prefer to be under watered than over watered, but this one liked to be over watered.  Now its a thriving plant sitting in my bathroom, getting watered every day, mositure but no mist spray.

how to keep (Indoor)plants alive during a vacation

1) Create a green house.. room with good light and which can retain lot of moisture.. for me this was the bathroom. I kept the tub half full, even if it evaporates the moisture will hopefully stay in the room and condense on the plants etc. The Green house technology worked really well, the plants have gone wild and grown like crazy in 2 weeks :)

Oh! and remember to keep the cactaii and other dry weather plants out of the green house, Or they'll rot.

2) For small pots... keep them in a tray filled with water,  they will draw water from below once they get dry. This is not good for the long run as the roots will rot but it works out ok for 2-3 weeks. Take care to have enough water, so that it wont evaporate in 2 weeks. Leave dry weather plants alone, they'd prefer to be dry than have their roots in water. General rule for all indoor plants less water always better than more water.

2a)Wrap the whole plant + pot in a plastic bag(transparent one! obviously)... to save moisture.. I thought this will work only for water loving plants, others may wilt? but its kind of a mini green house so may not wilt.. I didn't try this.

3)For big plants.. this worked the best. Take a water bottle, fill it with water fully. make a small hole in the cap and stick it bottom up in the mud near the roots. Stick it in deep, so its kind of air tight. Water should trickle out of the bottle only when the mud is really dry.If you have really made it air tight, vacuum will hold the water up in the bottle and it will trickle down very slowly. Great technology it worked really well.

3a) Use a Wick. I liked this idea too, but I felt safer( easier :P) with the bottle option. Keep water in a huge bucket. Use some old shoe laces or make some cotton ropes out of rags for the wick Stick one end of the rope in water and the other end, bury it in the pot. When the pot starts to dry, it will draw water from the bucket!!! I can picture the plants sucking water like out of a straw with a slurp! :) cool or what? :)

4) Fill the bath tub with thick rags which wont dry easily, fill up a few inches of  water and put all your plants on top of this. this is same as 2) but will work for bigger pots as well.

Thanks internet for all these ideas! and my mom she too had the bottle idea :)

Lotus v/s Lily

This question has always intrigued me. What is the difference - lotus/Lilly? Childhood explanations were lotus is pink,lily( Naidile) is white, lotus blooms in the day and lilly at night,lilly is smaller. Somehow in my mind they were always inter changable.


I actaullly love to differentiate between closely species(?not just) like I want to see what is really different between koreans japanese chinese in appearance, wild dogs of the world and wolf, how different they are, Chimps bonobos orangutans, white and pink temple tree. bothers me untill I get the exact difference. No wonder I think I am really blessed to be born in the days of internet.


Actually white and pink temple tree is an interesting one, I looked up all over the place trying to look for species of plumeria.. no-where did I see anyone differentiating between the two. Ive always noticed that some plumeria plants are just so handsome and some.. well they are gawky.. flowers are the same except for the scent. I was looking up bangalore trees.. I wanted to find the name of those huge trees that grow all over bangalore, about 10 ft dia trunk on residency road near mayo circle? Its called MaLe mara..Rain tree..(Of south American origin, I had always pictured this tree to be from Africa.. I cud imagine it standing tall and alone in a vast grassland. but no :P)Thanks to rain tree, I found this wonderful blog http://www.wildwanderer.com/journal/flowering-trees/2/






Blog also lists Plumeria ( my temple tree!!!) and guess what there are actually two sub species. he says.. "There are 2 species of Temple Trees that are met with often. The Red Frangipani Plumeria rubra which is a somewhat odd-looking tree while the White Frangipani Plumeria alba is the more handsome. Both are of small stature; the former being deciduous and the latter evergreen" :-} That was an Aahan! moment :)






Anyway coming back to topic, Lily lotus . I saw a lotus plant in a nursery and they called it lilly, it has bloomed in the day and it was purple!! I searched a lot on the internet but it took me a long long while to figure out what exactly lotus is and what lilly is.. even wiki and google images didnt help... lot of misnaming of the flowers. many ppl are as confused about lilly lotus as me.


finally I figured out, thanks to my mum's artificial lotus bloom. It is not the usual floaty thing that u get, but it is actually like this....













You know what ? I realise, I had never ever seen lotus in the wild, all the pink white yellow ones I have seen in so many ponds and lakes all these years, were all lilies. I found this artificial lotus really weird. why is it like this.. such a tall stalk? he's made it like that so that it can be kept in a pot.. etc..I saw a few pictures of chinese gardens... Saw lotus. didnt figure , then I saw tiger hunting deer in a lake- Rantambore.. and ...there's lotus in the background!!! I dono if it is rantambore, Its that place in Rajasthan where there is a fort in the forest and the tigers roam around on that fort, there is a lake right next to the fort. Those lotus( hundreds!) were just like my mum;s a few feet above the water!!..So..Beautiful! sometimes I think may be I imagined it, fort- lake- tiger and then Lotus too!?!! and that evening sun, Nat geo/Discovery guys catch so often? Imagination? no...


Artists capture it beautifully if u lookup lotus paintings....compare that with monnet's water lillies.. how different these two are!


lilly leaves float on top of water, lotus leaves grow right up - upto height of a few feet above water. lily leaves are flat like a plate and lotus leaves.. so beautiful, wavy. lilly gives an appearance of a floating plant, lotus more stalky. lotus has its seeds at the center. The famous seed pod. ever eaten lotus seeds? Ive heard my grand mum's stories...she used to go to the lake to pluck and eat lotus seeds when she was little and one day she saw a crocodile! scary! must have been younger than 12, she got married at 12! If that is so.. then this was in 1920..1930s..


lilly just has pollen.. never seen lily seeds. lilly has thin conical petals, lotus has rounder petals.. the flower is actually quite different. fuller buds too. lotus is usually much bigger than lilly. but not always true I guess, there is the gaint lilly from the americas.


lilly comes in all colors usually with a yellow center. Lotus I think in very few white and pink.?.. Sacred lotus.. its awe inspiring, really!! not so lilly. You can grow lily in a 3ft dia tub... for lotus u need slush a few feet deep. hmmm. I have tiny lilies in my tub now :) one day I want to grow lotus. those foot wide flowers!! hmmm.


I know, Now I have them all figured out. I went to the nursery to buy lilies and when i saw the lotus I cud say - Ah! u have a lotus! how did u manage to grow it :D

war on terror

Buggers! Aphids and mealy bugs!!! 

They are the first hurdle you will face when gardening, especially f u start gardening in spring.

U wont even notice them for a few weeks, then ur plants will look sickly, all the new leaves curled up, even burnt up. If u really peer under the leaves and look closely , u'll see these ugly B!@#!@#s. 

What do u do? U go buy hi-tech pesticides - equip yourself with gloves, a mask if u please, spray away to glory. Blast off these buggers. feel like a super hero may  be...  Next day ull find all them all burnt up black specs on the leaves and feel satisfied.. and in a week youll see some nice succulent new growth too! Now you can smile smugly,  put your foot up on the table, relax with a cup of tea? ha ha!! you wish. 

Just another few days, all ur new growth is curled up again and this time around if u really really peer under the leaves may be with  a microscope, u'll see them- baby bugs!!!! so back you go - to your laser gun to Zap off the baby B#!@^&@s?? 

You could be doing this all summer and all ull have is a few inches of poor growth and a bad bad allergy from all the chemicals and the fluff from mealys... but all the mealys and aphids safely back on your plants !!!! 

This is what happened to me last year, when i started to attempt to garden. Frustrating!!

Well  I did solve the mystery - thanks to the internet. The culprit(s) are Ants!!! Ants herd and rear the aphids just like we herd cattle.  It is amazing how nature works. Aphids sucks out the plant sap, on the new growth and they excrete honey due- full of sugar. This is where the ants come in- They feed on this honey due. Its not just that..- aphids are not very mobile, so Ants carry them  to new growth  from plant to plant. Ants care for the aphid young in winter . ( in their nest? may be, i think so, cause I blasted every bit of the plant but there were new babies every time) and protect them from predators!!![SEE PICTURES]in return they milk the aphids and store the honey dew!! Ants supposedly even use some drugs to control aphids!!! Ants are even known to cultivate fungi in their nests!!!![see link]  we think we are the only advanced creatures on this earth :P

Anyway if u want to get rid of Aphids, first get rid of ants( some ant powder) then spray the aphids with soap water and Neem oil, twice a week for 2 weeks and then once a week for a month and then as necessary,yeah that simple. u need to take care to spray throughly under the leaves tho. This even takes care of spider mites- which are not killed by pesticides.

 

Now  we know, we have to deal with the Pak Govt before we can get rid of Taliban! :D 

few links..

http://www.cactus-art.biz/note-book/Dictionary/Dictionary_M/dictionary_mealy_bugs.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphid

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pests/msg071005279330.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3309936/Ants-subdue-their-aphid-prey-with-drugs.html