#8 (Winter 2009)

Columnists:

Alex Yeskin, Gordon Bower, Michelle Healy, Tatiana & Mike, Sheri Ann Richerson.
(See more info about our columnists)

• Plant school and clinic
  • Growing tropical plants from seeds
    • Many plant collector’s as well as home gardeners know the best way to obtain an unusual or hard to find plant is to grow it from seed.  Seed may be the only way to get a certain plant especially if it is protected or extremely rare. There are other advantages of starting from seed too...
      
      
• Zone pushing
  • When the weather outside is frightful...
    • Fall and winter are the most challenging seasons for plants, including those grown indoors. Low light conditions and reduced humidity due to heating systems in use are the main two factors affecting an indoor plant environment during cold period. For either an experienced grower or a beginner, winter time is when the risk of loosing a plant is the highest. If one can understand the reasons why it’s happening, chances of loss can be reduced to a minimum...
      
      
• Exotic Kaleidoscope
  • Winter bloomers
    
    
• Legendary Plants
  • Nutmeg: the treasure of Dutch East India Company
    
    
• Do-It-Yourself Projects
  • Hi-Tech Nursery
    • XXI century plant growing: hi-tech computerized systems in your greenhouse, garden or plant nursery
      
      
• Nature's Food and Pharmacy
  • Sweet as sugar: Muntingia calabura, Strawberry Tree
    • Everything about this tree is fast - one can pick a handful of ripe fruit in mid-morning and another handful in mid-afternoon, day in, day out. It is one of the most profuse fruiting trees that can bring joy of sweet juicy fruit harvesting nearly year around to both kids and adults. From spring to fall, you will harvest 2 crops a day...
      
      
• Plants with scents as heady as incense...
  • Enchanted Gardenia - Queen of Aroma...
    • ...Everyone who has seen and smelled this flower was delighted by its beauty and instantly became a passionate admirer of a purity and essence of this magic flower.
      
      
• From Gordon-the-palmaholic
  
  • Beware the rays of the sun
    • It’s usually not hard to get advice while buying a palm. Buy it at a nursery in one of the big-box home centers, and you get a little card attached to one of the leaves that gives you a thumbnail sketch of the information you need to know to grow it. I’ve seen some cards at my local Home Depot, applied by the nursery where the palms were raised, that were laughable. I’ve seen labels that describe a palm as “tropical foliage.”  I’ve seen cards that belonged on another species. I’ve routinely seen them labeled with the wrong cultural information...

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