Gerbera Daisy (Gerbera jamesonii) - Best Air Cleaning Plant #5

One thing you may have noticed is that our list of air cleaning houseplants is that none of them so far have been flowering plants. Sure, plants like the Mass Cane are capable to producing flowers, but as houseplants they rarely ever do.

Which brings us to #5 on the list-gerbera daisies.

Gerbera daisies are a bit of a misnomer, as they're not really daisies, but in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). You can tell by the sturdy stems, thick leaves, and the shapes of the petals on the flowers. Gerbera daisies are native to southern Africa, and come in all kinds of beautiful colors. Its natural states are yellow, red, and orange, but growers have managed to produce pink, white, salmon, cream, and crimson flowers. In some cases, the same flower can even have petals of different colors. It's a perennial plant, meaning that if you grow it outdoors (in a frost-free climate) it'll wilt and look dead over the winter but pop back up in the spring.

The gerbera daisy (also called "gerber daisies" or "African daisies")--and in fact the entire genus--was named in 1737 by Dutchman Jan Fredric Gronovius in honor of an 18th century German medical doctor, naturalist, and botanist named Traugott Gerber. Gerber worked as a medical doctor in Russia and also took medical expeditions around the work searching for medicinal plants and herbs. Funny thing is, no one knows exactly why Gronovius decided to name the genus after him, but with over 30 species in the wild and over 100 species in total, the name stuck.

For years I worked at 1-800-Flowers, and that's where I first found out that Gerbera daisies are a popular cut flower (in fact, they're the fifth most popular cut flower behind roses, carnations, mums, and tulips). Here's one of their more popular arrangements:

As pretty as these flowers are, I always felt it kind of a waste that someone would pay upwards of $70 for two dozen of these, and they'd just die after a few weeks.

The cool thing about Gerberas, though, i that they make a good houseplant as well. In other words, not only will the flowers last for weeks, if the plant is well cared for, it'll bloom indoors in the autumn and winter.

I was excited to order my first-ever Gerbera daisy houseplant, again from 1-800-Flowers.

It's a bit pricier, but I've never, ever had a problem with plants from 1-800-Flowers, and buying from cheap places like K-mart always end up costing me more (saving $5 on a bag of potting soil has ended up costing me $50 and counting in fungus gnat remediation).

This is what I got in the mail.

Yes, a little disappointing that there are only two flowers and not nearly as many leaves as in the photo, but hopefully with some TLC more flowers and leaves will be growing. The plant is in excellent health, with no dead leaves, vibrant flowers, strong stems, and NO FUNGUS GNATS.

I also absolutely love the ladybug planter, which comes with a plastic insert for you to transplant the plant in from the small container it comes in.

Overall, it's not a bad little gift to give to someone. As for me, I'm going to transplant it in a bigger pot hoping for a lot of flowers and growth. 

Like the English Ivy, the gerbera daisy gets one of the highest ratings for removal of chemical vapors from Dr. Wolverton. 

Some care tips: 

1) Temperature: Keep between 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime and 45-50 degrees at night. 

2) Sunlight: It likes full sunlight to semi-sun, but you need to protect it from the sun at midday to prevent the blooms from aging too quickly.

3) Care and feeding: Keep soil evenly moist but not soggy. Feed regularly during the growing season. Keep on a cool windowsill in the autumn and winter months. 

Update: A few weeks after repotting the daisy, the two flowers started drooping. Thanks to sites like the National Gardening Association's, I realized I was not alone and that this was a fairly common problem. Here are some tips I found:

1) Keeping the leaves healthy is more important than the flowers--if the flowers wilt, just cut them off. As long as you continue to keep the leaves fed, sturdy, and green, new flowers that are more acclimated to your environment will take their place. 

2) Temperature is important. Gerbera daisies like it cooler than most plants, so find that perfect spot in the house where they get good sunlight in the morning but are otherwise shady and cool.

Replacement Aerogarden Strawberries Arrive

Well, as I prognosticated, only one of the clumps of twigs and dirt that Aerogrow sent over managed to grow. "Dormant State" indeed! Although I must say, the one plant that DID grow is growing very well.

To the Aerogrow lady's credit, she did send over a new set of strawberry crowns. I got the package in the mail about two weeks after she said she'd send it.

I like the fact that it says "LIVE PLANTS! PLEASE OPEN IMMEDIATELY", but I still question the decision of Aerogarden to send it via UPS SmartPost, a service that saves money by deliberately holding packages in a warehouse for days before sending it to you.

The first thing I did was to remove the strawberry crowns that did not grow. They were a muddy mess with absolutely no indication that they'd even tried to sprout. 

Taking the new "crowns" out of the box, they didn't look much better than the ones I was sent before.

Although this time, instead of crumbling when I touched them and seeing powdery white mold on it, I did see small indications of green. Still not quite what they picture on their Web site, but if it grows I won't mind.  

And so, I followed the instructions again and dug into the Coco Chunk to plant the strawberry plants. They say that 10 are supposed to come in a package, but after separating them as best as I could, I found maybe three decent sized plants, and the rest were twigs. We'll see how many grow this time.

Again, the proper way to grow them is to plant them root side down into the growing medium and let the Aerogarden water it every hour by filling the tank and draining it.

And so now the waiting game starts. Let's see if this new batch grows any better than the old one. 

Aerogarden Strawberry Kit - Can you Really Grow Strawberries indoors?

If you've been following this blog you know I've grown just about everything there is to grow in an Aerogarden (at least legally). I've gone through herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, peppers, and flowers. In short, I've been a sucker every time Aerogrow decides to release something new.

With my Aerogarden Ultra back in action I decided to do something I wanted to do for a long time--send away for the Aerogarden Strawberry Kit. Now for years people have been experimenting with strawberry plants in the Aerogarden with limited success. I'm not sure the exact reason, but my guess is that it's because strawberries are really tough to grow from seed, so the best way to grow them is from cuttings which are rooted in an actual soil.

But recently, Aerogrow designed a new system that lets you root plants in an actual growing medium. And not surprisingly, the first kinds of plants they released were strawberries (although according to their site, their system also supports plants like orchids, bonsai, dwarf fruit trees, miniature roses, and more).

I'd love to try some of those other kinds of plants at some point, but because this would be my first experience I sent away for the Aerogarden Strawberry Kit, which I assume has the best chance for success.

The package arrived in the mail about a week after I ordered it using a service called "UPS SmartPost". This is where UPS delivers it to my local post office and the post office delivers it to me. What this usually means is an extended delay by the time the package gets to me, a fact that will become relevant as you read on.

Opening the box revealed a bunch of new plastic parts. It took me a while to figure out how they all go together, but once you realize how it's engineered you'll find that it's an ingenious way to "extend" the Aerogarden.

You actually have to do some minor surgery on your Ultra to make it work. Here's what you need to do:

1) Take your existing grow bowl and remove the top cover (with the holes to plant the seed pods in), and put it aside. You won't be needing it.

2) In the box is a smaller bowl that fits snugly on top of your main grow bowl. This is what's going to contain the growth medium, which I'll describe below.

3) You need to go into your big grow bowl and remove the long tube that sticks out of the pump. Again, put it aside as you won't be needing it, but you'll need it whenever you decide to convert your Aerogarden back to its original state.

Then, you'll replace it with a shorter tube that they provide you.

You then fit a plastic drain and "inlet nozzle" to the upper bowl

And then put the two together by putting the small bowl over the large bowl.

Here's what it'll look like, with the drainage plug in place. 

4)  You get two bags of growth medium. It's not soil, but something called "Chunk Coco Grow Media". If you don't want to use their growth medium, you can also use other media like aquarium gravel, perlite, or hydroton. Chunk Coco Grow Media looks like a bunch of wood and twigs broken into pieces the size of croutons. It turns out this is coconut fiber (basically chopped coconut shells) which turns out to be an ideal growing medium because it provide support for growing plants, provides sufficient oxygen, drains much more quickly than soil or sand, and is a renewable resource (no guilt throwing this in the trash).

You fill your bowl with this coconut fiber (the two bags they provide are more than sufficient to fill the bowl and have some left over). Prior to using it, you need to soak them in water to hydrate and expand them. This turned out to be a much more difficult exercise that I thought it would because as it turns out, wood floats. So I would follow the instructions and fill the plastic bag the coconut fiber came in with water only, only to see them float on top of the water and pop out. I figured out after a while that I just had to fill the bag halfway, tie the end of bag to seal it, and let the wood soak the water in that way.

Once your wood is soaked the rest of the process is pretty simple. You just pour it into the smaller bowl, and this will be where you plant your plants.

5) You also need to configure the computer for the AeroGrow Ultra. One thing I missed in the instructions is that you first have to set up using "Quick Plant" and choosing the cycle for "Flowers".

Then, you need to go in and modify the behavior of the pump so that every hour it pumps for two minutes and then it goes off for the other 58 minutes.

By setting the Aerogarden this way, your plants essentially get "rewatered" every hour when the water is pumped out of the lower bowl into the upper one. It's a rather clever way of simulating a hydrated fertile piece of ground. If you plant something other than strawberries, you'll need to experiment with different watering cycles--plants that like drier environments like orchids or bonsai may need only 2 minutes a week!

6) The next is planting. Unlike previous Aerogarden sets, you don't get a seed pod with the Strawberry kit, but actual live plants. Or so it's supposed to be. I think because I had my package delivered on a hot summer week using UPS SurePost (when these packages sit in warehouses for days at a time), what I got didn't look a lot like live plants.

Here's what I expected to see, photo courtesy of the Aerogarden Web site:

And here's what I got:

As bad as it looks in the picture, it looked worse in real life. It was just a clump of brown twigs and dirt that looked pretty dry and brittle. I could see that maybe two plants had the slighted hint of green in them, but the others were so dry they practically disintegrated when I touched them. In fact, a few had fuzzy mold growing on them.

The package was supposed to have "ten plants", but for the life of me I had a hard to finding ten after trying to separate the dirt, dried roots, twigs, and dust.

I called AeroGrow and the woman there insisted to me that they were in a "dormant state" and that I should try planting them anyway. After a little bit of back-and-forth, she was kind enough to agree to send me a new set of plants, but I could tell from her voice she was skeptical. She said a new batch was on its way, but why don't I try planting them anyway and seeing what happens?

And so I did. To plant them, you basically have to put them root side down (again, it was a little tough telling which side was the root), push the coconut fiber aside, and basically cover all but a small portion of top of them with the medium.

Here's what they looked like planted.

I'm going to predict that maybe two of them are going to grow, but I'll bet dollars to doughnuts the rest won't. But to Aerogarden's credit, they'll be sending me more plants.

If you're interested in buying your own Aerogarden Strawberry Kit, bear in mind that first you need an Aerogarden ULTRA or ULTRA LED (it won't work with other kinds of Aerogardens, even tall garden ones due to the shape of the bowl and the type of pump).

If you have one of those, all you need to the AeroGarden Site, click on "Seed Kits" in the top navigation (even though these are plants, not seeds), and search for "Aerogarden Grow Bowl and Strawberry Kit" (for the entire kit) or "Strawberry Crown Kit" (for just the plants).

AeroGrow comes through with a replacement base for the ULTRA

Autumn is nigh, and while that usually means harvest time, with indoor gardens it can mean planting time as well. So I'll be putting my obsession with air cleaning plants aside for a while and turn my attention back to Aerogardening.

Remember how I mentioned how I came from from traveling to find my Aerogarden ULTRA dead with a burning smell coming from it?, Well AeroGrow came through in a big way for me. Specifically, they sent me a brand new base. Now when I first heard they were sending a new base I figured maybe they'd send me some new circuit boards or something and it'd be up to me to figure out how to rip out the old one and replace it. But no, they sent an entire base, complete with the ULTRA control pad and all power cables. And they also threw in a new set of lights to boot.

I'm glad they're stepping up in this way, especially to make sure that the experience of "early adopters" is good (if you recall, I probably got one of the first 10 or so of these things off the assembly line). 

The most obvious difference between the old base of the ULTRA and the new one is that the new one has more screws on the bottom and generally looks a little less "cheap" and flimsy. 

While they were never 100% clear of what the defect in the old models is, it's probable that when users over-watered their gardens (a common occurrence given how hard it is to see the water line), the water would spill over right into the circuitry and cause a short circuit. The replacement cover they sent honestly didn't look too much different from the old cover (I think there were just extra edges molded in), but this new model looks like they did a bit more of a redesign. 

Installing the new base was a snap (literally). I needed to unhook the old grow light hook from the old, burned-out base...

And snap it into the new one.

And so begins another adventure in Aerogardening. And this time I'm going to be adventurous! Stay tuned. 

Dumb Cane (Dieffenbachia camilla): Best Air Cleaning Plant #18

There are actually two plants by go by the name of "Dumb Cane", the Dieffenbachia "Exotica Compacta" and the Dieffenbachia camilla. The differences have to do with the variegation. Both have broad, green leaves, but Exotica Compacta seems to have a more "splotchy" look to the whiteness in the middle of the leaf, while Camilla (pictured here) has a more solid white pattern.

In either case, they have similar air cleaning qualities and both are stunningly beautiful houseplants.

The reason it's called "dumb cane" is interesting. Their sap contains calcium oxalate. You might recall this also occurs in Golden Pothos; as with that plant, if you bite into any part of the plant it can cause your throat to swell and you can lose your speech for several days. This is why you want to keep these plants far from children and pets.

You'll want to keep these plants in bright, filtered light; if the setting is too dark the leaves can lose their variegation. It's another plant that's easy to grow and just requires fertilization every month and to be always kept moist (misting is also good for it).

You can purchase this plant at most plant stores, or if you can get a Dieffenbachia on Amazon from various sellers.

 Some care tips:

1) Temperature: Keep between 65-80 degrees Fahrenheit.

2) Sunlight: It likes bright, filtered light such as what you find by a window.

3) Care and feeding: Keep soil evenly moist but not soggy. Feed monthly and keep away from drafts.

Corn Plant (Dracaena fragrans "Massangeana"): Best Air Cleaning Plant #12

The corn plant is a bit of a misnomer, as it has nothing to do with corn. But if you've ever shucked corn, you'll understand where the name comes from. The thick, green leaves that grow from the plant have a similar color, texture, and thickness as leaves you peel off of corn. In addition, the thick, round cane (main stem) of the plant is a solid woody stem with a light brown color that puts you in the mind of a corn husk or hull.

The plant is also known by a few other names, most commonly the cornstalk dracaena, the mass cane plant, or Dracaena fragrans. The latin name contains the word "fragrans" because when it grows in the wild it produces highly fragrant flowers. As a houseplant, though, it rarely blooms so most of the time it's grown as just a green plant.

You'll also hear the plant referred to as a "Mass Cane", which is short for "Massangeana Cane", one of the most popular variegated cultivars that you'll find in most shops--typically the variegation will be a yellow stripe down the middle of each left. Mine was supposed to be a Mass Cane, but it looks like it pretty much reverted to its original form as mine doesn't have any yellow stripes.

The plant is native to tropical Africa, from the Sudan to Mozambique to the Ivory Coast to Angola. There, they're generally grown as shrubs or hedge plants, as they thrive in the warm, wet climate. That same hardiness makes them practically indestructible houseplants. I speak from experience; I bought the corn plant you see here from 1-800-Flowers on September 18, 2009. Now, exactly five years later, the plant has survived a massive fungus gnat infestation, a repotting where the root ball was so heavy I accidentally broke most of it in the process, long periods of time without water (the soil would literally be dry to the point of cracking), and a spot in the house away from the window that gets no direct sunlight. While I had to trim a lot of it, and you can see a new offset growing at the bottom of the pot, the plant you see here is pretty much the same as I was five years ago.

It's a versatile plant as well. Some let the cane grow long and tall, while others will cut the cane and cap it, letting offshoots grow off to the sides (which is what I have here). The Janet Craig and the Warneckii cultivars we've already talked about all have their roots (no pun intended) in the dracaena fragrans.

This is probably one of the best plants for someone new to plants to grow, because it's virtually indestructible as long as you remember to water it every now and again. While it prefers bright light, you can put it in a part of the house that gets almost no light and it'll be just fine. The plant is exceptional at removing formaldehyde from the air.

You can purchase a 6" version at Amazon that you can grow from a small plant, or if you prefer a full-grown plant that's going to last years I'd suggest doing what I did and going to a site like Home Depot or 1-800-Flowers.

Areca Palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens): Best Air Cleaning Plant #2

The Areca Palm goes by a number of names: yellow palm, the butterfly palm. bamboo palm, or golden cane palm. It's native to Madagascar, where it grows in tropical rain forests or near moist river beds. It has since been naturalized to a number of islands near Africa, the Carribean, and Central and South America, basically any region that's tropical or subtropical and humid. And of course, it's one of the most popular houseplants in the world.

The Areca Palm is the only plant on Dr. Wolverton's list that gets a 10 out of 10 for transpiration--the rate at which it releases moisture back into the air. In fact, a 6 foot areca palm can release about one whole quart of water into the air every 24 hours, making it a great natural humidifier. Of course, this water has to come from somewhere, which means keeping watering it a LOT. You need to keep the root ball ball damp, mist regularly (at least daily), and provide humidity as much as you can, especially in a dry office or home environment (for example, putting it in a subirrigation planter or placing the planter on a bowl of rocks with water).

Ironically, while I talked earlier about how overwatering plants can cause excessive soil mites and fungus gnats, underwatering the areca palm can have the same effect, attracting nasties like spider mites, which thrive under hot, dry conditions.

Of course I can't talk about plants I buy at Kmart without finding something to complain about. And in this case, when I brought the Palm home I first notice a couple scale insects on the leaves (one pest I haven't had to deal with so far), which I immediately plucked off the plan. Luckily, it didn't look like an infestation, probably just a few that migrated over from neighboring plants. Again, great job by the Kmart in Manhattan.

After I got home, I noticed "freckles" (or if you prefer, "speckles" or "spots") all over the stems. Weirder still, I found that if I wiped them with a wet and slightly abrasive cloth (like a paper towel) they'd come right off.

I was perplexed as to what these were. I Googled it, and while I found a few others who encountered the same thing, no one seemed to know what they were. The one thing I learned is that people on the Internet love to talk about stuff they know nothing about. Some people swore these were more scale insects, but after a slight moment of panic I discounter this because they simply don't have the icky "bump" you generally see with scale. Others speculated that it's something called "flyspeck fungus". Some websites report that if you see spotting or speckling on leaves (but they didn't mention stems) it's an indication that there were salts or minerals in the water, as Arecas have the ability to move salt accumulations to selected branches (when the branches get saturated they'll die and you need to remove them, but the damage will be isolated to that frond). And others said this is just a natural phenomenon that happens with all Arecas. 

Just to be safe, I took a paper towel and some dish soap and scrubbed each of the stems. There's still spotting on them but it's a lot less than before.

I brought the plant to the office. Here's what it looks like right now: 

Arecas like indirect light, as direct sunlight can easily burn the leaves. I do have a corner of my office window that never gets direct sunlight, so I'll leave it there for a while. It helps that I have access to spring water outside my office, so I'll use that to water the plant to prevent it from having to deal with things like fluoride and salts in tap water.

My next step is going to be to repot it; while Arecas are okay being pot-bound, the current pot is too small for it to grow from its current height of about 2 feet to its standard indoor size of 6-8 feet (outdoors it can grow to 25 feet). This would require a pot that's about double what I have now.

As for the air-cleaning properties of the plant, this one ranks near the top. It removes benzene, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene from the air.

If you're interested in an Areca Palm, this seller on Amazon is selling them, and of course you'll find them in most home centers and plant stores.

Some care tips:

1) Temperature: Keep between 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit.
2) Sunlight: As much light as it can get without getting direct sunlight. 
3) Care and feeding: Keep the root ball damp but avoid having the pot sit in water, which can cause root rot. Mist frequently to keep a good appearance. keep spider mites away, and give it the humidity it craves and will pay back in the form of great transpiration. 

UPDATE: sadly, I didn't take my own advice. I went on a two week vacation and forgot to tell anyone to water my plant, so I came back to my Areca slumped over and dried out to the point of being brittle. No great loss, as I figure next time I'll buy it from Amazon or Home Depot or somewhere other than Kmart. I'll post pictures when I get my new Areca in.