Welcome back to my jungle. These photos were taken November, 2011, a couple of months after I brought my tropical plants in for the winter. These purplish-red flowers are from a 'Sharry Baby' Oncidium orchid. They are fragrant and last for weeks. I plant my orchids in hanging baskets with coco liners. For arboreal (tree dwelling) orchids, I use a commercial orchid mix. It's mostly bark, but it includes charcoal, perlite, and peat moss. It's OK to water them frequently because most of the water runs right out of the bottom. I spray the leaves with a water soluble orchid fertilizer mixed at half the strength listed in the directions on the bottle.
This is a Blue Ginger (
Dichorisandra thyrsiflora). Although I bought this in Hawaii, it is actually native to Brazil. It likes a shady moist spot, however I use regular Miracle-Gro potting mix. The moisture control mix holds too much water and breaks down much faster than the original stuff. (After the built-in fertilizer runs out, I use strictly organic fertilizers.) The Ginger came as a finger-sized piece of stem in a plastic bag bearing the Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture inspection stamp. It takes a couple of years for that stem to grow flowers like these. It spreads from the roots, so it could become invasive in areas without frost. I'm going to plant some in zone 9 and see if it makes it through the winter.
This is a double Hibiscus. I don't know the name of the variety. I suspect this is a hybrid between a tropical Hibiscus and a temperate species. While the flowers are beautiful, the problem with Hibiscus in the sunroom is aphids. Aphids LOVE Hibiscus leaves and will suck them dry if you allow it. Insecticidal soap only slows the bugs down a little--it does not eradicate the problem.
This is a close-up view of my T.R. Hovey Papaya (Carica papaya). As you can see, this one sheds most of its flower buds. However, if the flower develops, it is very likely to grow into a fruit. The petals don't really spread apart any more than this. They simply dry up and fall off. I thought I had some recent pictures of the fruit on my camera, but I'll have to upload them to a different post. The fruit becomes a much darker green as it grows. I've got it planted in a 24 inch diameter half-whisky-barrel liner filled with--you guessed it--original Miracle-Gro potting mix.
In advertising pictures, TR Hovey Papaya are always heavily laden with fruit. I may be getting less fruit because of the cool temperatures in my sunroom over the winter, the unavoidable partial shade, or my lower frequency of watering when plants are dormant.
Did you know Papaya are distantly related to Cabbage?
This is Hawaiian Ti (
Cordyline fruticosa) in flower. This is only the second time I've ever seen these flowers. The first time I saw them, I asked the owners how they got flowers. They advised pouring cold coffee on it instead of water. I followed this advice and got flowers. Amazing!
The Native Hawaiians used Ti leaves to wrap food for cooking the same way the Aztecs wrapped tamales in corn husks. Many Cordylines with highly colored foliage are readily available in garden centers across the USA. They come in various shades of red and purple, sometimes mixed with green.
All you need to propagate Ti is a thumb-sized cutting of stem. Plant the stem mostly covered in potting mix. Keep moist, but not soggy. It takes a while, but the stem will root and sprout a stem with leaves. The more green there is in the leaves, the more vigorous the plant will be.
I bought 100 Kona Coffee (Coffea arabica) seedlings and the seeds from one Cocoa Bean Pod (Theobroma cacao) from a vendor on the Big Island. The Chocolate saplings on the right and the Coffee saplings on the left are the result. These are among my most tropical plants since they die at the first hint of frost.
Coffee is remarkably easy to grow and makes an excellent houseplant. It grows slowly giving you plenty of time to prune it to size. If you don't prune it, it will bump the ceiling--hey, it's a tree. When you prune, remember only one-year-old branches make flowers and then beans. It will grow in indirect sunlight, but you'll get more berries the more sunlight it gets. That brings to mind the second caution: Don't take your coffee plant directly from indoors to full sun. The leaves will sunburn and it will take some time for the injured plant to replace the lost leaves. If you introduce your Coffee to more sunlight gradually, the leaves will adapt and give you more flowers.
On the Coffee plants above, notice how the leaves grow in opposite pairs with the next pair of leaves growing at a 90 degree angle from the previous pair.
Here are three Coffee saplings, a Cola (
Kola acuminata) sapling, and a piece of Pepper (
Piper nigrum) vine. What's weird about these Coffee seedlings is they have three leaves growing at each point on the stem rather than the two in the Coffee plants in the previous photo.
Over 10% of the Coffee sprouts I got had what appeared to be multiple cotyledons. About 5% exhibited the three leaf pattern (not all 5% were part of the 10%). Approximately half of these grew out of it and resumed the two leaf pattern. Only these three plants have maintained the three leaf pattern including growing three branches. (Each of these branches resumed the two-leaf pattern.) I don't know if this leaf pattern is an indicator of a genetic problem or not. Professional Coffee growers generally throw oddball plants away rather than risk investing time, water, fertilizer in a defective plant. The three leaf pattern plants will grow much thicker than the others. I'll let you know if they flower or make beans.
