All about miniature plants and gardens indoors and out

by Bernice Brilmayer

PESTS AND TREATMENT

	Symptoms	Treatment
Aphids (Nasty plant lice)	Little louse-like insects. Green in color in our area. Clustered on new leaves, on flowers, and around stems	This is an easy one to get rid of, but likely to return if you don’t watch out. Use a solution of Black Leaf 40 (nicotine sulfate) in a combination spray with lindane or pyrethrum and malathion. Or you can use any of them alone
Mealybugs (Don’t let them frighten you)	Little white dabs of cotton clinging to tender joints, stems, and the underside of leaves	Dip an artist’s paint brush or a cotton-wrapped toothpick in a solution of malathion. Remove the pests one by one
Mites	Buds and new leaves are puckered and distorted. The underside of the leaves may show fine, white silky webs	Dip plants in a solution of malathion, Kelthane, or Tedion according to the directions on the label
Mildew	Silvery dust disfigures the leaves, most likely in dark, muggy summer weather	Dust plants with sulfur, or spray with one of the new fungicides like captan, zineb, etc. Give plants more space and increase air circulation
Scale	Hard brown, or green, scales irregularly on the underside of leaves	Dip plant in a solution of malathion. Repeat according to directions
Slugs	Slimy villains, like shell-less snails, which hide in soil or under pots by day and come out to chew holes in leaves at night	Use special slug-bait containing metaldehyde according to package directions
Thrips	Brownish blotches under leaves. Disfigured flowers	Dip or spray with malathion all-purpose mixture containing lindane, pyrethrum
White Fly	Minute flies swarm in the air about the plant when disturbed	Spray or dip in malathion, or an all-purpose mixture

Since I fashioned my first crude propagating box—a square cake-tin with a rickety frame covered with kitchen plastic—I’ve always had some sort of similar device in operation. They have been of many sizes and shapes, and have included an aquarium vacated by the children’s goldfish, and a fruit crate from the grocery with cut-to-measure glass sides and top (I use masking tape to hold the corners). The one thing common to all of these boxes is the three-inch layer of some moist propagating medium, ready to receive seeds and cuttings.

The latest and most attractive box I’ve used is the Gro-Master—a ready-made plug-in propagator with an electric coil in the bottom to provide gentle bottom heat. Several similar devices are also available. With something like this one can hardly miss germinating even the most difficult house-plant seeds, or rooting even the most delicate cuttings.

The choice of a propagating medium is all yours. I’ve used vermiculite, perlite, and Pelonex with unqualified success. I tried sharp sand but discovered that it dried out too fast for anything but succulents. Peat alone, or mixed with sand, tends to pack and rots rather quickly. I tried a blend of equal parts of peat, vermiculite, and perlite. It held up rather well, but I seldom bother to mix it. Regardless of what you prefer to use, have the medium moist when you use it, and water just enough to keep it barely moist during the rooting process.

Of course, with many types of plants, you can root “slips” in a glass of water on your kitchen window sill. But in any kind of propagating box, where the air is kept humid and the delicate plants are protected from drafts and drying-out, you have a better chance.

House Plants from Seed

African violets and other gesneriads, all types of begonias and geraniums, and many other indoor plants can be grown quite easily from seed. I like to plant each variety in its own small plastic refrigerator dish with a half-inch or so of soil (moist, sterilized soil that is) in the bottom of the dish. Sometimes I use plastic ice-cube trays. When planting powder-fine seeds, I usually add a thin layer of moist, finely-milled sphagnum moss and make it very smooth. Dust the tiny seeds over this surface, but don’t cover them with soil. Larger seeds should be covered with soil or more moss. Next, cover the container tightly and set it in a warm spot. That is when you will appreciate a propagating box. If the moss and soil begins to dry out, moisten it by gently running drops of water down the sides of the container. Please be gentle and tender. Tiny seeds and seedlings should not be disturbed.

When the seedlings have developed one or two true leaves of fairly substantial size, pick them out very gently and transplant them to another “community” container, or to individual thumb pots. Keep them humid and protected until they are big enough to need transplanting again. After that, they should be nearly ready to become adjusted to grown-up growing conditions in a window, or some other indoor garden.

One of the neatest tricks of the year is the Water ‘N’ Watch indoor garden developed and sold by Peggie Schulz, an attractive plastic planter complete with soil and planted with fourteen types of seeds. You simply follow her instructions, add water, and watch the seedlings germinate and grow. Gradually you remove the plastic dome when the plants are large enough. At transplanting time, remove the seedlings to separate pots, or leave a few to mature in the planter. This device is just about as work-free a method of growing house plants as there is.

Propagation box developed by Peggie Schulz, author and garden columnist

Sprouted stem cuttings of dwarf geraniums

Stem Cuttings

This is the most familiar way to propagate house plants, and the method that works best for most kinds of plants. With the exception of miniature orchids, stem cuttings can be taken from any house plant mentioned in this book, and your chances for success are very good if you have a propagating box for them.

Generally, stem cuttings are the ends cut from branches that are in healthy, active growth. Each should be more than a mere tip, and have at least two nodes, or “joints.” The large, bottom leaves are stripped off very gently and the cut end of the stem is inserted, to about half of its length, in the propagating medium. When you see evidences of new growth, or when roots have developed, dig under it with a spoon and remove it for potting. (Here is the test to determine if roots have developed: Pull on the cutting, very gently of course. If you feel resistance you know it has roots which are holding it down.) Pot your new plant very carefully in soil that is suitable for it; and please, don’t add fertilizer to this soil.

For stem cuttings, and most other methods of propagation, there are now certain hormone rooting preparations. They speed up rooting, make it more certain, and help to develop larger and healthier root systems. Be sure you get the correct type for softwood cuttings, or indoor plants. In using these new hormones, follow the directions on the package carefully.

Leaf Cuttings

It is a well-known fact that African violets will reproduce themselves from a single leaf. However, it is not so well known that there are dozens of other plants that will do the same. For example, more than once I have taken a succulent leaf, laid it out flat on moist sand, and had it grow roots and a small new plant. Leaves of peperomias, and many other plants, can be cut, with or without a piece of stem, and will grow bushy new plantlets. Some kinds of begonias will send out roots from the end of the stem, or new plants from the point above where stem and leaf join.

Except for some succulents, leaf cuttings are usually inserted with their stem ends in a moist propagating medium, with their leaves standing nearly upright above. (Again, you are safer if you have a propagating box, even though it be a crude one.) When they are well rooted and the new plants are of fair size, the cuttings are potted with the old leaves intact. The parent leaf is removed only when the new plant is strong enough to grow on its own. Of course, in the case of African violets, where more than one plant is produced at the end of the stem, the babies must be separated and each put into its own pot.

Root and Rhizome Cuttings

Sections of roots are sometimes cut to propagate house and greenhouse plants, but the practice is more common with hardy garden plants. But pieces of thickened, stemlike, or rootlike rhizomes can be taken from many types of indoor plants. Rhizomatous begonias, and rex begonias of rhizomatous habit, are familiar examples. Each piece of rhizome should have at least two, but preferably three, “eyes,” or scars from which leafstems have grown. The piece is placed half in and half out of the moist medium in the propagating box. Roots grow from the bottom down into the medium; stems and leaves shoot up from the eyes on top.

Layering

There are two general methods of layering, and in each case the plant is completely rooted before it is cut away from the parent. In “air layering” a thick stem, or cane, is slit, wrapped with moist sphagnum moss, and enclosed in plastic until roots are produced. This method is usually practiced on large, overgrown plants such as dieffenbachias, and truthfully is not necessary, or practical, for most miniatures.

But ground layering is a safe and sure way to propagate almost any plant with lax stems, and is particularly useful on temperamental plants such as some miniature ivies, which are reluctant to strike roots on stem cuttings. It is very simple. Just pin down the stem, not too far from the growing tip, in the soil beside the mature plant. If you like, you can put it in a pot of its own and thus be one jump ahead by having the roots where you want them. I usually steal a hairpin out of my “bun,” but a section of wire bent into a U will do. When the stem has rooted, cut it off on the side next to the parent plant. Unless it is already rooted in a pot, dig it out and plant it.

Division of Crowns and Roots

One African-violet plant may grow several crowns, or main stems complete with rosettes. Since single-crown plants usually are more shapely and bloom more abundantly, the extra crowns can be cut off and rooted like ordinary stem cuttings. This is one of the more popular methods of dividing an old plant and getting several new ones from it.

Some plants will eventually make such dense, bushy growth that they not only look obese and unattractive, but are prey to all sorts of rot. Root division not only gives these plants a new lease on life, but also provides several new plants. Remove the overgrown plant from its pot, and very gently, try to split the matted roots and stems into separate sections. Do this with your fingers and not a metal instrument. If you work slowly and with care, several will most likely pull free. If you can’t do it with your fingers, you may have to resort to a clean sharp knife, in which case cut down past the stems and through the roots, making several separate sections. Discard any damaged leaves. Pot up the divisions, and keep them shaded and protected for a week or so until they recover from the shock.

Runners, Stolons, and Offsets

Many plants are continually propagating themselves by producing new plants in clusters around the old ones, sometimes at the ends of underground stolons or above-ground runners. Saxifraga sarmentosa was named “Strawberry begonia” because it continually produces new plants on runners, strawberry-style. Episcias and chlorophytums are other examples.

Any of these offsets make new plants easily. Pin them down in soil, give them time to root, and then cut them off and insert them in a propagating box. Next, you pot them. Sometimes you’ll find the roots have already formed and the new plant is ready for potting and you didn’t even suspect it.