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2009-10-04 Spider Plant
I live in a small apartment. It’s not a big place by any means, but it’s big enough for me. The problem is, it’s a wee bit sterile. I can’t hang anything, because I can’t put any holes in the wall, and the horrible textured wallpaper that Japan loves so much makes BluTak a reckless proposition. So what could I do to bring some life and character into the apartment?
Houseplants.
I decided that I’d also try to chronicle my houseplant experience here, so that what I learn can be a resource for other people hoping to keep plants in their tiny apartment. Also, while there are a lot of apartment gardening resources for America in English, and they have useful, universally applicable information, for some expats, an English resource for gardening in Japan would be helpful. “What’s this plant called?” “I need this, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it’s called, or a brand name to reference, in Japan! HELP!”
So yeah, welcome to Gardening Sunday. This week: Meet the Plants.
2009-10-4 Tokiwa Shinobu
First up, my tokiwa shinobu. Shinobu is a type of fern. In my case, my 忍 is a davallia mariesii, a rather popular variety of fern in Japan. Though they usually live on rocks or tree branches, since the Edo period, Japanese people have sprouted them in balls of moss to sit in small pots (like mine) or hang under the eaves of the house in summer. They go dormant in winter, allegedly, but mine continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace, all last winter.
I picked it up for about 200yen at a supermarket florist in September 2008. It was cute, and made me happy, so I bought it. Extremely easy to care for. I’ve got it in my north-facing window, sheltered so it only gets about 10 minutes of sunlight a day, and it’s doing fantastic. In summer, I water it once a day until its tray is full, and then leave it. It’ll suck up more water from the tray during the day. In winter, I tend to water it once every other day or so. It doesn’t take much to make it happy, really.
2009-10-4 Christmas Cactus Cuttings
Next up, my Christmas Cactus. I really love Christmas Cacti, but I’ve never had one of my own. When I saw that there were a couple overgrown, in need of some pruning monsters at one of my offices, I absconded with two leaves, which I’m now in the process of trying to root in water. We’ll see how it goes, I guess. Come to think of it, I’m not sure what Christmas Cactus is in Japanese. クリスマスのサボテン seems to return hits, so that’s easy enough.
2009-10-4 Jade plant in water
Next, in a similar fashion, I made off with two jade plant leaves from another of my offices, and now I’m trying to start one in water and one in soil. Both are said to be equally easy, but I’ve never done it before. Again, we’ll see. The one in soil hasn’t been watered since I popped him in there (with moist cactus mix soil — 105yen at the Daiso) on 9-29, but the soil needn’t be sopping. I’ll give it a sprinkle on Tuesday.
2009-10-4 Jade in soil
Speaking of the Daiso, have you ever noticed the small plants they have in water trays near the front door of some of them? This can be a great place to pick up small plants for your apartment. Most of them come clearly labelled in Japanese, so you can bring it home and practice your multi-lingual Google-fu to figure out what it is in English and how to care for it. This is an alocasia (クワズイモ in Japanese) that I picked up for 105 yen. It’s doing quite well, with the middle leaf having just unfurled yesterday, and two more gearing up to do the same in the coming week.
2009-10-4 Alocasia
Alocasias like to be moist in summer, and a little dry in winter. The stems grow out of a bulb (or, I guess, a corm). The corm is technically edible, but there’s big ol’ oxalic acid crystals in it, and it’ll make your tongue and pharynx swell up if it’s not boiled until doomsday. Can also cause hallucinations and breathing difficulty. So, if you buy one, and then end up short of cash one month, you could TECHNICALLY cook it up and eat it. But probably that is not a good idea.
The best part of buying plants at the Daiso is that if they go south, you’re not out any money, really; and if they don’t, welp, you’re up a beautiful bit of green in your place.
2009-10-4 Snake Plant
Another super easy plant that belongs in every apartment, I feel, is the snake plant (or mother in law’s tongue, if you’re into dissing your partner’s mom). It’s unique looking, very architectural, cleans the air, and, most importantly, is nigh on impossible to kill. It likes sunlight, but will survive in shade. It likes a bit of water, but will survive with very little. Easiest way to kill it is to overwater it. This is the type of plant you can buy, enjoy, and never worry about it. I picked this pot up for 1295 yen at the Cainz Home center in Utsunomiya. Huge place, great garden center, and reasonable prices. This particular one is a Sansevieria trifasciata “Laurentii”, one of the more popular cultivars in Japan (and abroad too, if the interwebs are to be believed), but there are many other types with various leaf patterns. Check them out.
2009-10-04 Cycad
One day, while at my local home centre (a small one, with little selection, but with a reasonable-sized garden centre), I came across this lovely Cycad (Cycas revolutas). I had to have it. I yearned to buy it. I finally convinced myself that it was a worthwhile purchase (wasn’t so hard, actually — I REALLY wanted it), and picked it up to take it inside. But that’s when I noticed THE INFESTATION. Under every frond, tons and tons of mealybugs. Slightly disappointed, but still determined to purchase a cycad that day, I checked some of the other pots; they ALL had intense mealybug infestations. After a brief argument with the garden centre head, I was able to get this one for half price.
2009-09-19 Cycad and mealybugs
But then started the hard work. First, tearing off the yellowing leaves, and scraping off the horrible grody little mealybugs. Then, for 10 days, repeating the process and spraying with a mixture of water, soap, canola oil, and cooking sherry (just a drop of each in a spray bottle of water). Eventually, though it was very time consuming, the mealybug menace was no more, and the plant started to regain its health. There’re signs of new growth on the fronds today, which is a good sign.
Cycads don’t like to be overwatered, and like a well-drained soil. I don’t think this one has a well-drained soil, though, based on the fact that I last watered it a week ago, and it sits in direct sun in a southern window, and the soil is still damp. I do hope it won’t get root rot. I’ll repot it in spring for sure, though.
2009-10-04 Avocado
Behold! An avocado in hydroculture. After having a pleasant discussion about houseplants with the lady who sits next to me at my Friday office, she gave me this avocado that she’d started from a pit in a glass of water several weeks earlier. I brought it home and immediately popped it into this hydroculture stuff. It’s just sterile clay beads. It holds the plant in place, and you put water in the bottom. The roots don’t sit in water, so there’s no chance for root rot (not a big problem with avocados, but a definite problem with succulents — succulents love hydroculture), and it’s very easy to repot or clean the pot, or whathave you. I bought these hydroculture beads at the Daiso for 100 yen. You can get 1L bags of small ones, medium ones (like used here) or large ones, like I used for my Ficus Elastica.
2009-10-04 Ficus Elastica
Ah, my poor poor Rubber Tree (Ficus elastica, ゴムの木). I bought it in early 2008, I think. It was in a different type of hydroculture pot, with an inner pot, and horrible black mulch. It looked nice at first, and so I bought it. I’m afraid I haven’t treated it so well though. Rubber trees like a reasonable amount of water, but not too much, and they don’t like sitting in it; they also like sun, but harsh, direct sun will burn their leaves.
When I lived in my old place, I had it in a dim window that only got direct sun for like, 10 minutes a day. It did all right, but didn’t go wild like some people’s rubber trees do. When I moved here, I thought, “Hey! I’ll put it out on my southern-exposure veranda! This is a great idea!” Well, sort of, except the full sun burned the leaves (they’re yellowy now — they ought to be dark green and burgundy), and it rained all of August, so it was perpetually overwatered. Add to that the fact that it was rootbound in this horrible black mulch, and it just wasn’t doing so hot. It dropped two leaves before I realized I was killing it.
Brought it back inside, and it was getting a little better, but the mulch wouldn’t dry out at all. It was impossible now to figure out how much water ought to be added, as well, because of the state of the mulch in the clear plastic bowl. After reading that Rubber tree plants love hydroculture, I figured I’d give it a go, and now it’s in this big jar. It’s only been in there a few days, but it seems to be doing alright. It’s not doing any worse, at any rate!
2009-10-04 Aloe Aristata
On the day I purchased the Cycad, I was also perusing the table of tiny succulents they had for sale, and this Aloe Aristata was just so beautiful I had to have it. It lives in my window, and doesn’t get watered much these days (though the soil is still humid, based on the condensation left in the drip tray when I lift the pot). Come spring, I hope to convert her to hydroculture as well.
Speaking of water, here’s a spider plant baby that I liberated from one of my offices. The spider plant in the front entrance was huge and overgrown and had scads of babies hanging off of it.
2009-10-04 Spider Plant
I selected one healthy looking individual, snipped it off, and brought it home. It’s been sitting in water for a few days, and already the roots have started to form. When its root structure is well-established, I’ll pot it up in small-grain hydroculture beads.
And now, as we draw near to the end of the plants I wanted to introduce to you, let us spare a moment for my poor poor Aloe Nobilis. You see, I’d had it for a couple years as well, and it did fairly good! When I moved to Tochigi, I sat it on my southern-exposure veranda so it could have as much light as it wanted. It got a little sunburnt, as aloes do, and also probably overwatered in Rainy August From Hell. But I brought it in, and it seemed to be doing well. The soil wasn’t drying out very well, but I didn’t think too much of it. The leaves were greening up again (after being a little burgundy from the sun), and there was new growth in the centre.
2009-09-18 Aloe Nobilis (RIP)
But when I went to poke the new growth gently last Tuesday evening, the ENTIRE TOP OF THE PLANT FELL OFF. The central stock was rotten, and the rot was spreading to the leaves. Despite looking healthy, it was nearly dead. I’m not quite sure how it happened. Could be that the rot had started ages ago due to the rains. I fertilized four days before this discovery, so it could theoretically have been that, but that sort of reaction after a single fertilization seems a little extreme to me.
Either way, the result was the same: my A. Nobilis needed to be trashed. I unpotted it, and was surprised to find most of the roots intact and non-gooey. The offsets which I’d been watching grow a little each day, however, were rotten below the soil line, and so I couldn’t grab one of them to propagate the plant and save it, after a fashion.
Though the internet was firmly against me, I took six leave cuttings with the intent to plant them and get new plants. The internet rarely acknowledges that aloes can be propagated in this fashion. They ALL say “nono, don’t do it that way, just wait for an offset ^_^”. LOOK, I DO NOT HAVE AN OFFSET. I NEVER WILL. GET A HINT AND ANSWER MY QUESTION: WILL A LEAF CUTTING WORK, EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT THE NATURAL AND EASY SOLUTION?
“Teehee, I dunno ^_^”
Thanks. Thanks for that.
2009-10-04 Aloe Nobilis cuttings
The few sources I could find said that letting the cut leaves dry for a few days or a week in a cool, dark, dry location and then planting them in some cactus soil would do the trick. Starting in water is possible, but extremely difficult as the leaves usually rot first. So, with my six cuttings, I decided I’d do four in soil and two in water, just to cover my ass.
Then I came home from work one day to find that three of them had started to rot. I tossed them, and along with them went the plan to start in water. Nope, all three would go in soil.
Today I decided that they’d dried long enough, and that it was time to throw them in soil. I got these pots at, where else, the Daiso. The Daiso is surprisingly handy for gardening materials. Pretty much everything I need I can get there, including plants! If you’re looking to start an apartment garden, do give Daiso a look a first, yes?
2009-10-04 Aloe Nobilis Cuttings
So yeah, now we just wait, and give them a light sprinkle of water occasionally. On the offchance they DO root, it’s gonna be a long, slow process. I do hope it works though, because I’m ever so sad about losing that plant.
Anyway, those are the plants I currently have and/or are trying to start. All of these do well in the indirect light of some apartments, but most will thank you for having a bright south window, if you’ve got one. Give any of them a try.
As for the hydroculture shenanigans I kept mentioning, a really good resource for it would be Water Roots. It’s the site I got most of my info from, and that sent me on the path of trying to grow stuff this way. I’ve only just begun, so I’m not sure if it’ll work, but sources suggest it ought to work very well. Anyway, give Water Roots a read and then decide if you wanna give hydroculture a go.
Right! So that’s that. Yes, I guess this post ended up being rather tl;dr, but whatever. Next week, I’ll give you updates on my alocasia, my various cuttings, and, of course, Project Lazarus: A. Nobilis Edition. I’ll also talk about my plans for spring (even though it’s soooo too early for that).