Here is the big worry many growers have; the failure of their pets to flower. More often than not that means insufficient light, insufficient red light, or perhaps both.
As of this date it is probably ten years since we first started toying with plants under artificial lights. I say “toying” because it was just that—purely for fun. We kept no records. When frost was in the air we dug up flowers and brought them indoors. My husband even brought in eleven goldfish which he feared would be glacéed in an outdoor pool. We put everything under lights with the fish in terrariums. Eventually he spent thirty dollars for a pool in an untidy corner of the living room. Thirty dollars, not counting the electric bill, I felt was a little expensive for a dollar’s worth of goldfish. I sold twenty dollars worth of photographs of that pool and then included one of them in my book All About Vines and Hanging Plants. Eventually he allowed me, very grudgingly, to place episcias around the pool. Mites moved in on them. He sprayed for the mites and killed all of the fish. He replaced the fish with eleven others. Thus the cycle continued.
All the time we had those indoor plantings our neighbors kept asking us what plants were good for lights and what lights were good for plants. Frankly, we couldn’t answer. Ten years ago that book hadn’t been written.
We tried just about everything less than five feet tall. We had wonderful results with African violets, begonias, orchids, and gesneriads. We even had a morning glory which singed itself on a steam pipe. All of them loved the kilowatts.
(In Chapter 6 I have indicated certain plants which are suitable for propagation under artificial lights.)
CHAPTER 3
MINIATURE GARDENS IN CONTAINERS
DECORATIVE CONTAINERS, DISH GARDENS, AND MODEL LANDSCAPES
House plants are usually considered more or less lasting indoor decorations. But they can also be used the same as cut flowers for temporary and changeable displays, and then, like cut flowers, can be discarded when they begin to fade. They cost less and last much longer than bouquets, but because they’re temporary decorations, they cause less worry and require less care than the permanent inhabitants of window sills or artificially lighted gardens.
That sounds rather heartless, I know. But it’s a defense I’ve built up—and a perfectly logical one—against the wails of those who take beautiful florists’ plants, place them on dark mantels, or in other thoroughly unsuitable growing areas, neglect them wholeheartedly, and then “can’t make them grow.” How many people do you know who buy lovely Christmas begonias, poinsettias, or cyclamen for the holidays and expect them to bloom the following season?