Houseplants Welcome Your Holiday House Guests
- by Mike Bader, Buyer/Manager, Houseplant Department

The holidays are approaching, your spare time is consumed with shopping for gifts, and guests are expected this weekend. Sound familiar? Living plant arrangements create a welcoming atmosphere in any home, but choosing the right plants for the right places can be stressful for you and your plants. Let me show you some quick and simple solutions for this busy, but wonderful time of year.

Certain seasonal houseplants coincide with Christmas. Poinsettias certainly are the most familiar to us, combining in one plant both red and green, the two traditional colors of Christmas. Behnke’s also offers many new varieties of our Signature Poinsettias available in shades of pink and creamy white, even some with speckles or streaks. Cyclamen, azaleas, Christmas cacti, and Rieger begonias are also some of my favorites. Cyclamen and azaleas, among the most popular houseplants in autumn and winter, have a potential life-span far longer than is often realized. While these plants can be stressed by too much or too little water and excessive heat, if properly treated they can flower year after year, increasing in number of flowers.

You can easily increase the impact of a seasonal display by massing several identical plants together, either in one large container or several individual ones. This is particularly true if you have a large room, where a single display of four or five Christmas cacti or Rieger begonias, grouped together in a large clay bowl or rustic-looking basket can appear quite spectacular. In addition, houseplants will benefit from being massed together, rather than being positioned randomly around the house. Plants “like” growing together because they give off water vapor which makes the surrounding air more humid.

Even more fun and adventurous is creating your own arrangement using a variety of winter-flowering plants or attractive foliage plants. When selecting your container keep in mind that not only must it match the scale of the plants, but it must harmonize with the flowers. Many people select white containers, thinking they are a safe choice for displaying indoor plants. Unless your scheme incorporates a lot of white flowers or variegated foliage, white pots can look very lonely when set against healthy looking plants. A safer choice is green or terra-cotta, which tends to look good with most color schemes and never dominates.

Whether you have chosen a wicker basket, ceramic bowl, or simply a large terra-cotta or plastic saucer, it is time to carry it through our greenhouses and experiment. Focus your attention on our large selection of plants in 3- and 4-inch pots, keeping in mind that you won’t have to re-pot or transplant your creation. In this way you can choose to group together plants with different watering needs so long as they require similar amounts of light and temperature. It will also make replacement of plants that have finished blooming much easier. Don’t forget to pick up a small plastic saucer for each plant. They make putting together an arrangement even quicker and easier.

Behnke’s has flowering plants for every season of the year. I prefer cool, subtle color harmonies – blues, pinks, mauves, and whites. They have a very calming effect and are easier to live with than the vibrant colors of reds, yellow, and oranges – which tend to dominate or overpower. Try the latter colors in January when light levels are low and a more rigorous treatment is needed to brighten an otherwise dreary room. If you are creating an all-foliage display instead of a blooming arrangement, it is important to pick plants with different leaf shapes, colors, and forms.

If you’re running short on time, you can always select from our large assortment of ready-made dish gardens and plant combinations. Many of them will feature our specialty – African violets.

For something different, any sturdy, woody-stemmed houseplant can be a potential Christmas tree. By far the most popular indoor Christmas tree is the Norfolk Island pine. I eagerly await our new shipment of these beautiful and delicate light green evergreens in mid-November. These, along with our “early-blooming” poinsettia varieties, officially begins our holiday plant season. Norfolk Island pines prefer a cool location in your home for the winter and bright indirect light during their winter rest period. Our pines are sun-grown to provide you with the best possible shape and are not spray-painted green.

Weeping figs are especially beautiful with Christmas tree lights strung through their branches. I recommend that you try our “new” discovery Ficus benjamina ‘Monique’. It has deep green, glossy foliage which resists the leaf drop which often plagues the older varieties of weeping figs. Our growers call this “the ficus of the future.”

I have even seen dragon palms, corn plants, and rubber trees become attractive Christmas features using various lengths of fine black string to hang a variety of Christmas ornaments.

For children in the house, decorate your living Christmas tree with red and white striped candy canes, foil-covered Santas, or bags of foil-covered chocolate coins. Our Christmas Shop can provide you with Christmas treasures of the non-edible sort – exquisite handmade glass ornaments in imaginative shapes from Europe, American-made blown glass ornaments, and much more. For an elegant yet simple presentation, you could decorate your indoor tree with red, green, gold, silver, or white ribbon bows.

By the way, don’t forget to “festivize” the dull green foliage plants already in your home. A quick and easy way to provide seasonal interest is to add branches of contorted willow or walking stick, or holly sprigs in berry, eucalyptus sprigs, or even berried twigs of pyracantha, winterberry, or cotoneaster, just to name a few. Come to Behnke’s and let us help you welcome your house guests!

Finicky Ficus

by Mike Bader, Buyer/Manager, Houseplant Department

Just about everyone that has ever purchased a Ficus benjamina tree (commonly known as the weeping fig), has had to drag out the vacuum, broom, or even a rake to clean up those leaves that have dropped. All too often the concerned plant owner tries to water more, or water less, repot it, feed it, move it into more light, or move it into less light, and simply put, the plant just gets confused and so do we.

I have taken many of your phone calls asking why this happens, and generally speaking you will hear me say: “It’s adjusting to it’s new environment. It’s acclimating”. Acclimating is normally a matter of going from high light to lower light. Just as we have certain expectations when we adopt an indoor plant, plants also have certain expectations of us. Understanding their native habitats can help us to satisfy those expectations.

The Ficus family is quite diverse with over 800 species and 2,000 varieties. They can be found growing in full sun or the heavily shaded dense forest. Contrary to what you may have heard, ficus is a very versatile plant as far as light goes. In the full sun, they will have a thick canopy of leaves; but, in the dense forest, they will grow very open with fewer leaves and thin weeping branches.

If one could measure the actual thickness of the individual leaves, you would find the leaves to also be thicker when grown in the sun and thinner when grown in the shade. This explains some of the leaf loss when your ficus goes from higher light levels (typically our greenhouse) to a lower light level (your home). They are adapting (acclimating), dropping inefficient leaves and producing more efficient leaves for capturing available sunlight.

Just as sure as birds migrate south for the winter season, the Ficus benjamina comes from an area of the world that has always had a very distinct wet and dry season. When preparing for the dry season (like that time when you thought someone else was watering your ficus), they shed their leaves. This reduces the amount of leaves needed to survive, since a decrease in water will not support all of them.

When the rains return (the first time you watered after you noticed all the leaves on the floor), new growth will emerge and the canopy will return. As with light changes, their survival mechanism is leaf drop. Ficus do not like changes, they are truly creatures of habit. What they want, as much as anything else, is a consistent environment.

Once you have decided where you are going to place your ficus (the more light the better), try to keep it in the same location. Although your indoor environment changes with the seasons, develop a watering schedule. The soil should be kept moist but not soggy and should not dry out between waterings.

One of the first keys to having success with your plants indoors is maintaining a good root system. Do not make the mistake of repotting your new plant for at least several months. This would disturb the root system and change the amount of moisture around the roots. Do clean the leaves to remove dust on a regular basis.

You should take your ficus to the shower about every two months, or if you prefer to shower alone a damp cloth will do. When grown indoors, ficus have almost no need to be fertilized; however, any well balanced fertilizer will maintain growth during spring and summer. Ficus enjoy warm conditions between 68-85 during the day. As with most tropicals, they will flourish in almost any well drained potting soil.

Keep in mind that your ficus tree has been shipped from our Florida growers to our greenhouses and then to your home. The plant is experiencing both light changes and moisture changes. Moisture-stressed ficus tend to drop yellow leaves, while ficus exposed to low-light stress tend to drop green leaves.

Containing Your Enthusiasm
by Mike Bader, Plant Buyer

Spectacular outdoor containers overflowing with a variety of plants are one of the hottest trends in gardening today. Creating extraordinary plant combinations in the home using indoor plants has never been easier. In fact, plants like to be grouped together because they give off water vapor, which makes the surrounding air more humid, providing them with a happy growing environment. Our houseplant greenhouses receive fresh shipments weekly, making your design possibilities almost endless.

In years past, flowering plants were used as the central feature of container gardens, but more of our designs use foliage plants which survive indoors longer and can adapt to partially shaded rooms. My favorite combinations really pack in the plants using four basic design functions: size, color, leaf shape and form.

While browsing through our warm and cozy greenhouses, begin your design with an eye-catching upright plant that will add some height to your creation. Among the easiest to grow are dracaenas, often resembling palms with arching leaves and bare, woody stems. Their striking leaves are usually long and striped with various combinations of white, cream, yellow, red and several shades of green. Most of us are familiar with the popular Dracaena marginata or dragon palm, but Behnke’s carries several new introductions as well. Another favorite of mine is the Ficus elastica or rubber plant. The glossy leaves are large and leathery with prominent midribs and pointed tips. The newer cultivars have a more compact growth habit and colored leaf markings of green, gray-green, creamy yellow, white, pink and burgundy.

Essential for adding surprise and color to your combinations, accent plants often feature bold foliage. Leaves that are variegated or exhibit unusual color, such as burgundy or chartreuse, are especially effective. Codiaeum variegatum, or croton, has magnificent leaves in shades of yellow, orange, pink, red and dark green. Their colorful foliage can be long and thin, broad and rounded, straight or even twisted. For those of you who are seduced by a plant’s flowers (myself included), bury an empty plastic pot in your container, either a 5 inch or 7 inch depending on the size of your creation.

Most of our blooming plants are available in 4-inch or 6-inch sizes and you can insert your favorites into the empty pot without actually planting in the soil. After they have finished flowering you can easily replace them with another. We currently have blooming African violets, azaleas, begonias, bromeliads, chrysanthemums, cyclamens, kalanchoes and miniature roses. In February spring bulbs begin to arrive along with primulas and hydrangeas.

Using a variety of leaf shapes and sizes adds excitement and interest to your planting combination. Look for contrasting shapes and textures to bring life into your design. Here is where I have some fun using several smaller plants as fillers. As their name suggests, these plants fill in the combination, but more importantly, they separate the bolder participants in the container. There are just too many to mention, but some of my favorites include asparagus fern, rex begonia, spider plant, polka dot plant, peperomia, aluminum plant, fittonia, and several types of table ferns.

The final selection for your design should include a trailing plant or two. These plants provide much of the charm to your plant combinations while spilling over the top of the container or mingling among other container inhabitants. There are many types of English ivy and pothos that are colorful and easy to grow. You can also choose from creeping fig, baby tears, purple heart, strawberry begonia, Swedish ivy, and just about any plant you see growing in a hanging basket.

Let’s not forget to mention the new truckload shipments of pottery arriving each month. I am forever in search of interesting pots, whether they are hand-painted by a local artist or hand thrown and painted in a far away land.You can choose from a wide variety of sizes, shapes and style variations, designed especially for the home or office. Behnkes carries contemporary ceramics, terra cotta, China bowls, Italian or classic cylinders, gloss, matte, or faux finishes, and specialty containers for orchids, bonsai, cactus, and succulents. I recommend Miracle-Gro potting soils and fertilizers to ensure your gardening success. Our Behnke designers can also assist in selecting containers and foliage to match your light, favorite colors, style requirements, and your enthusiasm!