Require Additional Photons

Just a short post today.  I’m still waiting for my camera to show up in New York after it’s long trip from Chicago.  Once it arrives I can commence taking photos, and this blog will hopefully become a much more colorful and active place.  Apologies in advance for the lack of things to look at.

For the nonce, however, I would like to briefly complain about the difficulties of being an indoor “gardener” in Manhattan.  I put “gardener” in quotation marks because I’m doubtful the term can really apply to someone who never puts plants in the actual ground.  You know, that thing we stand on which plants have been growing for the past several hundred million years.  Apparently people do this thing called “container gardening,” but it seems to me that shouldn’t really apply to single plants grown in pots that stay strictly indoors.

So…I’m not really a gardener at the moment.  That said, being a person-who-grows-plants is a hard row to hoe when you live in a major metropolis.  I will have pictures of my setup before too long, but for now allow me to describe it.  I live in a one-room studio of approximately 400 square feet.  Actual adults living in real houses or grown-up apartments are free to be shocked by this.  However, coming from four years of living in a 100 sq ft dorm room in undergrad, my tiny little studio has more than adequate living space for me.  Or at least it would if I didn’t have to share the space with 40+ plants, most of which are whiny attention whores.

I have three windows with sills approximately 3 ft x 7 in.  This actually isn’t bad at all for an apartment the size of mine.  The much bigger issue is that they face more or less due east.  (The Manhattan street grid runs almost-but-just-not-quite north and south, and everyone refers to these directions as though they were absolute.  What this means is that though my windows face “east,” I do get a slightly southern exposure.)  Combine this with the fact that I live on the fourth floor of a twelve story building surrounded by other eight-to-fifteen story building, and I wind up with approximately one hour of direct late-morning sun every day.  If I just grew a few low-light houseplants, that would be fine, but my plant list shows this is clearly not the case.

So, there is a major photon shortage in my apartment.  I’ve attempted to ameliorate this problem through the use of various clip-on lamps (pictures to come, I promise!).  At present I count seven compact fluorescent bulbs used exclusively to make the plants happy.  I’ve had relatively good success with this setup so far, but it does mean that I pretty much have to go out and buy a new clip-on light every time I have a new arrival.  The setup I would like to have would be a wire shelving unit with four foot fluorescent light fixtures on it.  But I encountered another problem with Manhattan.  All of the hardware stores are complete jokes.  They sell almost nothing I ever need, much less a four foot shop fixture.

So far I’ve managed without, but I find myself several high-light desires.  First off, there are the Eschscholzia californica seedlings that are actually going to get a lot taller than I anticipated, and which will require more light than I’m currently giving them.  Then there are the two items at the top of my wishlist.  The first is Amorphophallus konjac.  This is a pretty neat genus of plants which have large underground corms that produce a single leaf each year.  The leaf of A. konjac can be  six feet tall, and the four foot tall inflorescence smells like rotting meat.  Yes, this is the plant that I want.  I’m trying to figure out if this is impractical or utterly insane considering my space and light restrictions.  I think the novelty of it might win out in the end.  If so, I’ll post a full profile of the plant, including a lot of other really cool information that this  post is already too long to include.

The second plant I’m really wanting at the moment is any member of the Lithops genus.  These are the “living stones” that you occasionally see at botanical gardens, or even some plant stores.  Again, if I get them, I’ll post more information on the genus.  Suffice it for now to say that they grow in quartz flats in South Africa and are accustomed to at least twelve hours of bright desert sun every single day.  I’m thinking of growing them from seed.  If anyone has tips on growing this genus from seed, input would be great, though probably I should just dismiss the whole project as insane

Well, that post sure ended up longer than I expected.  Congratulations if you read the whole thing.  If you skipped to the end, congratulations also, because you saved yourself from reading a long and not very interesting post without any colorful pictures.  That being said, here is a picture.  Just a few examples of the Lithops genus that I’m apparently so keen on:

Happy growing!

“Poppies! Yes, now they’ll sleep.”

One of my all-time favorite movies is The Wizard of Oz.  There are many, many reasons I like this movie, a couple of which are purely sentimental, but a mainstay is the stunning visual nature of almost every scene.  Oz is truly a movie to be looked at.  A scene that sticks out for any plant lover would have to be the field of poppies covered in snow, shortly before the entourage arrives at the Emerald City.

So, I was at Whole Foods the other day (don’t get me started on grocery shopping in NYC) and saw the display of seed packets.  After briefly wondering who was growing cucumber vines in Manhattan, I bought a packet of California poppies (Eschscholzia californica Mikado).  This is the lovely seed packet that they came in:

Lovely watercolor illustration by Pat Fostvedt

California poppies represent just one genus (Eschscholzi) of the poppy family.  They’re native to Mediterranean-type climates like California’s, and in particular like recently disturbed ground.

The traditional red poppy that’s used (in silk form) to commemorate fallen soldiers on Veterans’ Day and the like is Papaver rhoeas:

The reason for this is that, like it’s California cousin, P. rhoeas likes disturbed ground, which was particularly plentiful during World War I in the land between the trenches, No-Man’s Land.  Apparently the poppies used to bloom profusely in the spring, even when all the other plants had been destroyed by war.  I’m very fond of this life-in-death imagery of the poppies blooming in the midst of so many fallen soldiers.

The poppy is also used on tombstones to symbolize eternal sleep.  This dates from the Roman period, and is likely due to the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum.  Yes, this is the plant that gives us opium, morphine, codeine, hydromorphone, oxycodone, and hydrocodone, all thanks to the presence of narcotic alkaloids found in the latex sap of the seedpod.

Tasty, tasty latex.

In case you’re wondering, yes, P. somniferum is classified as a Schedule II controlled substance in the U.S. and is thus illegal in all forms.  However, they tend not to arrest people who grow the flowers for decorative purposes, or for poppy seeds (as witnessed by the fact that your local bagel seller is still in operation).

My seedlings germinated two days ago (only two days after sowing), and are already an inch high.  Only the flower will get much height on it.  The rest of the plant will form a low rosette of highly divided leaves.  I will have pictures of their progress as soon as my camera is up and running.

Until next time, happy growing!

Post One: the Cotyledons

Welcome to the first (cotyledonous) post of The Phytophile!  It may be a gray and cold day here in New York City, with snow on the ground yet again, but inside my apartment it’s warm, bright, and green.  This winter has been particularly difficult, especially for people in the Midwest and those of us on the East Coast who have experienced a more precipitous winter than usual.  Needless to say, everyone here is eagerly awaiting Spring.

A few weeks ago I passed a plant store selling Paperwhite Narcissus (Narcissus papyraceus) bulbs for $1.50, so I impulsively bought two.  They have since flowered, producing the lovely, fragrant, white blossoms for a disappointingly short period.  Now I’m just waiting for them to go dormant again.  However, my mystery Phalaenopsis hybrid is in bloom.  I bought this plant in bloom back in ’03, and it hasn’t bloomed since.  I consider myself good at growing plants, but this particular one has eluded me until now.  I just moved to New York back in September, and I have a particularly drafty window in my apartment.  My theory is that, since my Phal. was near that window, it finally got the autumn cool-down that it needed to flower.  The inflorescence was a sad two-bud deal, one of which blasted before opening.  So now I have a single, lone flower to cheer me through the rest of winter (or until it decides it’s done blooming).  While I feel like this is poor compensation for the nearly eight years of attention I’ve given this orchid, I’m still thankful for the bit of color.  I’ll see if I can get a picture soon.

That’s all for now.  Until next time, happy growing!