Not the best pics, but I found 2 plants that have been on my wishlist for quite a while and just had to adopt them. Epipremnum Cebu Blue and Maranta Silver Band! ❤️❤️ I'm SO over the moon to finally have these two!! The color of the Cebu Blue really is unique and very beautiful, there's something about seeing it irl that photos can't quite capture. All the Silver Bands they had there kinda looked not their best, but I went for the one that looked the strongest and it happened to be the biggest one also. Looking forward to seeing this improving over time! At least I hope it does! It's not like this is completely shit quality or anything, but it looks a little bit worn and muddy and I hope it'll like it's new home and thrive so it can look it's best in the future! Like the Maranta the Cebus all looked a little bit strained too and I chose the one that appeared healthiest to me.
And then there was this little piece of a succulent in our cart and I while I'm not too big on succulents I just couldn't leave it there to die. I thought it would maybe have a chance to root in my larger Crassula ovata pot, and now it turns out the little one is a Crassula rupestris?! That must've been fate 😂😂👌 Keeping my fingers crossed it'll settle in nicely and thrive in a shared pot with it's cousins!
Edit: Also look at the incredible variegation this Maranta kerchoveana is bringing on! I think this is exceptionally beautiful ❤️❤️❤️ Didn't really pay attention to this corner for a while and once I do look it's developed into this utter beauty?? Now it definitely has my attention lol!
Here's another one sparking a lot of joy: Maranta leuconeura 'Kerchoveana' variegata 🌿
I got this one together with the Burle Marx variegata, I was struggling to decide which one to buy and the shop owner gave me a small discount for both as a bundle 🥺
Did you know the new leaves of these plants are water-repellent?
This baby had grown a lot since I got him. He loves being part of my second floor shelves and having a big family of plants together.
His clay pot has accumulated calcium and other minerals found in tap water and fertilizer. This is common because clay is porous, this doesn't not affected the plants.
You can clean them or not. That's a personal choice. 😎🪴💚
She actually looks better than I thought this winter, especially considering she had a nasty mealy issue this fall and then I am extremely inconsistent about watering her properly.
🪴Maranta leuconeura var. kerchoveana Variegata🪴 Beautiful variegated maranta 😍 Care: • Bright indirect light 💡 • Water frequently when the top soil is dry 💦 • Prefers higher humidity 🌫 • Very light and airy soil 🪴 • Can be propagated by cuttings or division ✂️ #caretips #plants #plantsofinstagram #marantaleuconeurakerchoviana #marantavariegata #plantsmakepeoplehappy #houseplants #czechboy #czechuniversityoflifesciences #tropics (v místě Prague, Czech Republic)
It’s been a busy week in the garden. We are getting back to normal after the Heralding Spring event. I finally had an opportunity to try our new caterers and their food is delicious.
Medicinal plants will be done every fortnight going forward...so next week there should be a new one.
We have a new intern for three weeks, Harriet. She’s been a great help and a nice boost to the team.
I am still working through all the interpretation in the garden, though an end is nigh, thankfully. I started replacing a few raised beds in the pharmaceuticals area. That should be finished next week. I commenced work on the Galanthus collection in the garden. I drew up some quick planting plans, in the rain, so we know where we think they are now. I will look at dividing, moving and expanding the collection.
Plant ident on beautiful leaf patterns by Franziska Stampfli:
Acanthaceae Ruellia portellae
Boraginacae Pulmonaria officinalis
Euphorbiaceae Codiaeum variegatum ‘Petra’
Geraniaceae Pelargonium elongatum
Malvaceae Lavatera arborea ‘Variegata’
Marantaceae Maranta leuconeura var. kerchoveana
Piperaceae Piper ornatum
Primulaceae Cyclamen hederifolium
Rutaceae Citrus x limon ‘Variegata’
Xanthorrhoeaceae Gasteria croucheri
I enjoyed a busy social week: Raphael was visiting from Munich, Pasquale was in town from Florence, Denis invited me to see Káťa Kabanová (an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáčekat) the Royal Opera House Wednesday, and Thursday I caught up with my colleague Robert after work.
Thursday there was a one-day-only art exhibition in the garden, done by art students. This was my favourite, three different views through three differently shaped viewfinders. This was my favourite view, at that moment. I would love to see how that would change through the year with the plants.
Plant of the week
Lamiaceae Marrubium vulgare L.
common name(s) - white horehound, horehound, hound's bane, marrube, marvel, maw-roll
synonym(s) - Marrubium album Garsault [Invalid]; M. apulum Ten.; M. ballotoides Boiss. & Balansa; M. germanicum Schrank ex Steud.; M. hamatum Kunth; M. uncinatum Stokes; M. vaillantii Coss. & Germ.; M. vulgare subsp. apulum (Ten.) H.Lindb.; M. v. var. apulum (Ten.) K.Koch; M. v. var. caucasicum K.Koch; M. v. var. gossypinum Nábelek; M. v. var. lanatum Benth.; M. v. var. microphyllum Baguet; M. v. var. oligodon Rech.f.; Prasium marrubium E.H.L.Krause [Illegitimate]
conservation rating - Near Threatened
native to - North Africa, Europe and western Asia
location - perfumery, accession _____
leaves - oppositely-arranged densely covered in woolly hairs; lower leaves have longer petioles than the upper ones; egg-shaped or almost rounded in outline and crinkly in appearance; bluntly toothed margins and a rounded tip
flowers - white tubular flowers borne in dense clusters in the axils of the upper leaves; two-lipped, the upper lip being divided into two lobes and the lower into three lobes; surrounded by a persistent green calyx tube of fused sepals with ten narrow teeth; fruit contains four seeds or nutlets enclosed in the old flower calyx, which has ten backward-curved teeth or spines
habit - upright or spreading, evergreen perennial, much-branched herb with stems square in cross-section, up to about 600mm tall, more or less covered in woolly interwoven hairs
habitat - waste places, roadsides
pests - leafhoppers
disease - none found
hardiness - to -10ºC (H4)
soil - poor, dry soil, well-drained, neutral to alkaline
sun - full sun
propagation - seed, basal cuttings in late spring, division in spring
pruning - if cut back after flowering, it will normally produce a second crop of leaves
nomenclature - Lamiaceae - gullet, λαιμος the name in Pliny refers to the gaping mouth of the corolla (Lamiaceae = Labiatae); Marrubium - the name in Pliny, either from the Hebrew, marrob, for the biter-juice, or derived from Marrubium or Maria urbs, an ancient town of Italy; vulgare - usual, of the crowd, common, vulgar
NB - tends to invade land that has been disturbed, overgrazed or previously grazed by sheep in the Americas and Oceana and; is used as a natural grasshopper repellent in agriculture; is used to make hard lozenge candies; also used in beverages, brewed and made into Horehound Ale, an appetizing and healthful beverage, much drunk in Norfolk and other country districts, also steeped as tea (similar to the Maghrebi mint tea), and in the rock and rye cocktail; considered by folk medicine to aid digestion, soothe sore throats, and relieve inflammation; mentioned in conjunction with medicinal use dating at least back to the 1st century BC, where it appeared as a remedy for respiratory ailments in the treatise De Medicina by Roman encyclopaedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus who lists it as a remedy for expelling worms in farm animals in his important first-century work On Agriculture; has appeared for similar purposes in numerous herbals over the centuries, such as The Herball, or, Generall historie of plantes by John Gerard, and Every Man His Own Doctor: or, The Poor Planter’s Physician by Dr. John Tennent.
References, bibliography:
CABI [online] https://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/119607 [8 Feb 19]
Gledhill, David, (2008) The Names of Plants, fourth edition; Cambridge University Press; ISBN: 978-0-52168-553-5
IUCN [online] https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/203247/2762568 [8 Feb 19]
Plant List, The [online] http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/kew-120952 [8 Feb 19]
Plants for a Future [online] https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=marrubium+vulgare [8 Feb 19]
Shoot Gardening [online] https://www.shootgardening.co.uk/plant/marrubium-vulgare [8 Feb 19]
Wikipedia [online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrubium_vulgare [8 Feb 19]
Some kinda random plant update since the move! Most of the plants are doing spectacular with the higher humidity, I'll probably have an easier time with pests (thrips in particular, haven't had many problems with others). However, I just decided to throw away my spider plant because of exactly this problem 😩 it still harboured some and I'm not feeling like taking chances with that anymore. Will have to treat all the plants anyway just to make sure.
There are a few additions like a couple of really cheap Epipremnum pinnatum variegatas I found in a local hardware store, which I'm hoping to cultivate the few nicely variegated vines to make a plant with overall higher variegation than the originals. Also I found a baby Calathea zebrina, which of course had to come too, especially since all my calatheas died when I couldn't treat the last thrips problem in the old apartment (and I actually prefer the little baby ones anyway). Then I got gifted a Pilea peperomioides a while ago and I'm curious to see how that will do in my care (currently it's in thrips jail, although I think the ones I found on there were just wanderers from the spider plant directly above it). Yesterday I found a baby Philodendron White Princess for really cheap (not even 5€) and it was so pretty that I picked it up. Hopefully it'll do better than the other Philodendrons up until now 😅 but the higher humidity should help, so I think it does have a chance?
Other than that I'll probably sell a few cuttings here and there, especially since I had to/ wanted to snip a couple plants here and there either because they needed it or because I wanted to make them more bushy, so there should be a few extras some time down the road that I just don't have the space for long term. Hopefully they'll sell better than my art 🤣 which would be cool and so sad at the same time lol.
The Monstera albo finally has started to root nicely and also pushed out a new leaf already, which gives me hope it'll do well here. It did give me a good scare when the oldest leaves started getting yellow/ brown at the tips/ rims before the newest leaf came out. I still hope it's going to change it's mind about the too much white here and too much green there tendencies, though...
All in all, I'm pretty happy with how things are going currently! ❤️
Accidently deleted my comment and I don't feel like typing all of it again, so the short version is: we're still battling thrips, but I'm getting the hang of it (predatory mites and systemic neem oil plus regular removal of them with running water). Also many of my plants are beyond happy that I've started fertilizing more regularly and are treating me with lots and lots of new growth! Yay! 🥰❤️
Aside from that I'm getting two new plants soon: a maranta that was on my wishlist for ages and a calathea that I didn't even know existed until I saw it in the shop. Will be interesting to see them in person at the end of the week! 😍
I'm really impressed with the marantas, I didn't expect them to take off so much right from the start. Especially the lemon lime, it arrived with 7,5 leaves 3 weeks ago and is at 10,5 leaves right now, which is just crazy. The variegated and regular kerchoveanas are really putting in some hard work too! The rhaphi cuttings are busy rooting in water now, as there were things growing in the moss that I didn't like and some cuttings were starting to rot in leca. Water so far works beautifully, though. The ZZ Raven hasn't been growing yet for me, so I decided to move it to a slightly brighter location. We'll see if that changes anything.
Not pictured here, but still updates:
Next week I'm going to plant the pothos cuttings into soil (if I get to it, but it should be quick work). Then I changed my maiden hair fern from inside the shelf to the outside in a makramee hanger, because it started to look funny and obviously wanted a little bit more light than what reached into the shelf from the north facing window. Not sure if it won't block too much light for the plants still inside the shelf (it has LARGE beautiful fronds!), maybe I'll have to figure something out for them later if it doesn't work for them. I'd put a grow light there, but there's no electricity anywhere near, so that'd be a real challenge. 😅 Anyway, the N'Joy pothos that had been in that makramee hanger now lives on the stand with the other pothos. There should be enough light for it, hopefully not too much (it's near a south facing window), but we'll see how it likes that place.
Got a maranta leuconeura kerchoveana variegata! Could not resist, thought the leaves looked so celestial. This is my first prayer plant, I know humidity is a must, but does anyone have any more advice on how to keep this guy happy and thriving?
Ficus benjamina (the regular green one - only kept the one with a white sport) https://prayerplanthoarder.tumblr.com/tagged/ficus%20benjamina
Ficus benjamina 'Anastasia'
Ficus benjamina 'Danielle'
Ficus benjamina 'Natasja'
Ficus benjamina 'Kinky'
Ficus benjamina ‘Twilight‘ or ‘Starlight‘ https://prayerplanthoarder.tumblr.com/tagged/ficus%20benjamina%20twilight
Ficus elastica 'Tineke'
Ficus elastica 'Burgundy'
Hedera helix 'Variegata'
Hibiscus rosa sinensis
Hibiscus rosa sinensis 'variegata'
Maranta leuconeura var. kerchoveana https://prayerplanthoarder.tumblr.com/tagged/maranta%20leuconeura%20var%20kerchoveana
Maranta leuconeura var. kerchoveana variegata https://prayerplanthoarder.tumblr.com/tagged/maranta%20leuconeura%20var%20kerchoveana%20variegata
Maranta leuconeura 'Lemon Lime' https://prayerplanthoarder.tumblr.com/tagged/maranta%20leuconeura%20lemon%20lime
This plant pushed out a few leaves while I was gone! The one has a big white splotch that I love. The white tends to fade yellow at first and then get more solid white as the rest of the leaf grows and colors up. I was worried it wouldn't produce leaves as splotched with white as the original leaves on the plant because I have it in decently low light but nope! Maranta are superior to Calathea in every way