houseplants Archives

Bringing tropical cuttings and seeds to life

If you love plants, coming home from a trip with a bunch of seeds and plants in tow is like adding an extra day to your vacation.

All but a single one of these bags was approved at the USDA checkpoint to travel from Hawaii to the mainland, since the U.S. government is primarily concerned about the risks of transporting pests contained in commercial crops and fruit. As tropical plants washed free of soil, pulp, cotton, leaf spots and bound for a quarantined indoors setting, there’s little risk that any would become invasive threats in Colorado’s snowy climate.

Like an 8 year old back from trick-or-treating with a cache of Halloween candy, you spread your bounty out over the kitchen table and sort through what you got. After making some quick strategic plans, it’s off to the local garden store to buy some extra seed trays and plastic domes to get started.

Out of the dozens of types of plants I got though the USDA inspection in Hawaii, I feel relatively confident I can grow all but few. The philodendron vines and Monstera are notoriously easy to propagate from stem cuttings, even in plain water. I have two types of Crinum asiaticum (spider lily) seeds, which I’ve grown before and know they’re basically foolproof. Croton cuttings are also fairly easy to root in soil or water, although one of my cuttings is looking pretty wilted after shipping and I’m not sure if it will make it.

A batch *Crinum asiaticum*, or spider lily, seeds planted in a simple seed tray in vermiculite and potting mix. These are very easy to sprout—I figure all 6 out of 6 will survive.

An African tulip tree in Kona covered with flowers and big pods full of seeds.

One species I’m less sure about are the Spathodea campanulata seeds, known commonly as the African tulip tree, which reportedly have low germination rates. The pod I found on a tree growing next to a parking lot in Kona contained what looked like thousands of seeds—a dense, loose mass of flat, lightweight seeds, each imbedded in a thin cellophane-like sheet of tissue. Even the slightest breeze scatters the ultra-lightweight seeds into the air, where they flutter around like mosquitos. (This was an annoyance to the group I traveled with, when a swarm sparkly seeds blasted out of the pod on the dash and into the cab when the air conditioner came on.)

The seeds are plentiful and extremely gregarious travelers, but this plant’s reproduction strategy to is to produce its seeds en masse and allow them to spread far, with lower emphasis on each one’s viability. I’m worried there’s a chance the entire batch dried out too much while it was still on the tree and none will sprout.

The seeds of the African tulip tree are extremely lightweight and plentiful. This bag of seeds came from a single, banana-shaped pod. Although the seeds have a relatively low germination rate, it’s easy to see how *Spathodea campanulata* has become such an aggressive invader in tropical forests where it has been introduced outside its native range. These are headed to a seed tray to see if any will sprout, and will remain indoors as houseplants if they do.

I’m also less sure about the single, grape-sized seed pod I found in a refuse pile in the Maka’eo walking path garden at the old Kona airport (an amazing garden to visit if you are ever in the vicinity, by the way). I thought I knew what it was—I initially thought it was a Euphorbia neohumbertii—but now I’m looking that species up and having some doubts my ID was correct. In any case, the three seeds, which fit snugly in the three-chambered pod and have hard casings that resemble pine nuts, seem like they might be temperamental when it comes to watering the right amount. (An aside: these gardens are amazing place to visit if you are interested in looking at a wide range of tropical plants and succulents. But, though the gardens are unguarded, please don’t pluck any attached plant parts or take out any fallen fruit or other useful material. The gardens are maintained by local people, and theft of valuable plants and food crops has been a problem there).

Finally, I have some seeds from an Aloe of some sort that was absolutely covered in open pods, and a sandwich bag of seeds rom a large planting of Stapelia (also known as “carrion flower”) in Kona that was spewing its cottony fluff all over the sidewalk and beyond. The Stapelia pods look remarkably similar to those of milkweeds, as do the seeds themselves, so I looked the genus up and found Stapelia comes from the same subfamily as milkweed, Asclepiadoideae.

A mound of *Stapelia*, or carrion flower, growing at the community garden in the old airport in Kona. It turns out, *Stapelia* is in the same family as milkweed.

(It’s fascinating, the connections you can make when you know a bit about taxonomy. You can walk into a new environment, knowing hardly anything about the plant species there, and quickly identify a bunch of plants with Google by searching your location + the plant family or genus a specimen seems to belong to).

In any case, I have never grown Aloe nor Stapelia from seed, and sometimes these drought-loving plants can be temperamental to water properly in shallow trays. So we’ll see what happens.

I’ve been fascinated by the seeds from a Delonix regia tree, also known as royal ponciana or flame tree. Coming from an enormous dangling pod, which I left in Hawaii to reduce the risk of carrying pathogens, the seeds look like elongated beans. But unlike beans they come in a waterproof, waxy casing that prevents them from swelling even when soaked in pure water. It’s a strategy many plants and trees employ to encourage their seeds to last longer before they sprout, which gives them more of a chance to spread far and wide or emerge at the right times.

Many varieties of Lupine have a similar seed coating, which makes sense because they are also members of the Fabaceae or pea family, and this is something that can make their propagation more complicated. In the case of Lupine, the translucent seed coating is degraded by winter freeze-thaw cycles, fire, or long periods of time in general, helping the plant to get at least some of its seedlings to lie dormant in the seed bank and spring up in optimum conditions in early spring or after a wildfire clears competitors away. But Delonix regia, a tropical species, doesn’t live with cold winters or with recurrent fire (as far as I know). Instead, I wonder if the casing naturally dissolves in the stomach of an animal or bird, and sprouts great distances away in piles of poop.

In any case, I set seven seeds to soak in a tray of water and none of them looked any different after 24 hours. As a test I scoured the corners of two seeds with a piece of sandpaper, and sure enough, they began swelling from the scoured end, stretching and ripping the waxy coat apart until the entire seed had swelled.

Delonix regia (flame tree) seeds soaking in water. The two larger seeds were scoured at one end with sandpaper, allowing the seed to swell with water and break out of the waxy waterproof coating. The rest look exactly like they did before they went into the tray.

I’m also unsure about the viability of the Terminalia catappa, or sea almond seeds, which were easy to find all over the beaches in Hawaii. Supposedly these too are fickle to grow from seed—many of the seeds cores rot out during the long time that passes between the moment they fall and when the right conditions come along to germinate. The interestingly almond-shaped, lightweight, corky seeds evolved to float in sea water and colonize distant beaches, but are hard to pry open and I was unable to cut any open with the tools I had on hand during my trip. I’m excited about the seeds because the attractive, large-leafed trees seem to be a potential substitution for fiddle leaf figs, which are extremely trendy houseplants, but, in my opinion, are not well suited to life indoors. Fiddle leaf figs are just too finnicky, languishing in the low-light conditions in most homes and developing unsightly spots or dropping leaves at the slightest provocation.

Clusia rosea is another candidate I hope to use to fill the role of the fiddle leaf fig, and I got a few tiny seeds along with some cuttings. The seeds are small and come imbedded in a sticky orange goo that helps them attach to mature trees in a wet forest, germinate on a branch, send aerial roots down to the ground and ultimately overwhelm or strangle the unfortunate host tree. The seeds dry out and die easily (I planted six and the rest were dry and dead within a day), but the cuttings seem resilient, staying very plump and green in transport.

Additionally, there are some dry Pandanus tectorius (screwpine) seeds in my cache, a rare Hawaiian native plant that happens to be extensively cultivated, and I was able to collect the dry seeds from the lawn at a resort.

I’m fortunate to be somewhere with a lot of light, and the plants are getting started in a humidity dome to help them root and also give me a chance to discard any that show signs of flies or disease. However, they’ve all been rinsed and soaked, plucked and preened, and have had any spotted or damaged leaves removed. I’m not expecting any problems, and can’t wait to see what some of them turn out like.

A cutting of *Clusia rosea*, or autograph tree. I have no experience with them but I think they will be very easy to root because the cuttings are still plump and green with no wilting even after days in transport.

How much and how often to water indoor plants

If there were a scientific study on houseplant survival—a big ask since no one makes any money when houseplants survive—I’d guess the biggest killer is the way they’re watered.

Well, that, and being tossed in the trash.

Everyone understands that plants need water, and that “overwatering” is a danger as well. But that leaves a wide range of judgment calls about how much is right, from submerging plants in an aquarium and leaving them parched.

Not only do plants’ water needs vary by species, they also vary with temperature, light, the plant’s size and the rate of lush new growth. The soil’s ability to absorb and hold water, as well as the container volume, also affect how quickly plants dry out.

It’s next to impossible to prescribe a specific amount or frequency for watering plants without tracking an impossibly long list of variables. It’s more realistic to set plants up to tolerate a wider range of moisture levels, and learn how to see the signs a plant needs water.

For that, it’s good to understand the mechanism that injures plants when they’re too wet or dry.

Why indoor plants die from overwatering

In some of the wettest climates on Earth, the land gets up to ten meters of precipitation per year and springs to life with dense, lush misty forests covered in moss and vines. Overwatering is no concern to wild plants in the Pacific Northwest or tropical rainforests—they thrive in the constant drizzle of rain and mist. Yet if you remove those plants from the forest and put them in pots on a windowsill, they might be vulnerable to overwatering and rot. For all but the most drought-adapted species, the problem is simpler than you might think: it’s not that they die of over-hydration—they drown.

The most visible organisms on Earth are plants and animals, and there are big differences between the two kingdoms in terms of respiration. Animals’ bodies deliver oxygen to all their cells by circulating blood, which gets its oxygen from the lungs or gills. So enormous, metabolically-active creatures like hippos and whales can wallow in water constantly as long as they periodically poke their nostrils above the surface to breathe. That’s not true for plants, which lack an oxygen transport system in their sap, so they have to absorb oxygen directly into all their tissues from outside. Tree trunks, flowers, stems and leaves are covered in tiny openings—stomata—that exchange gasses with the outside air. The roots, which sometimes have stomata and sometimes absorb oxygen directly through their much thinner, more delicate outer skin, can only grow in soil that has holds oxygen. When roots reach lower layers of soil, too dense or damp or deep to exchange gasses with the air, they stop growing downward and instead spread horizontally through the fertile shallows.

Submerged roots can sometimes gather enough dissolved oxygen to survive in water, particularly if the roots are in clear water with few microbes. Hydroponic growing techniques use movement—the water is constantly circulating—to keep dissolved oxygen in the water. Even cuttings stuck in a jar can sometimes root, if the species is amenable to that (and as long as there are no rotting leaves or stems in the water, which is fatal for reasons that will soon be clear). But getting enough oxygen to pass through waterlogged soil is another matter, especially when there is decaying organic there.

Soil is full of bacteria and fungi, consuming bits of carbon and scavenging oxygen to fuel their metabolic needs. A healthy soil biome is an important component of the ecosystem, and when in balance it helps plants thrive. But bacteria and fungi are more tolerant of low-oxygen zones than plants’ roots are, and if soil oxygen levels drop low enough that roots start to die, those dead roots immediately become food for an additional flush of microbial life that causes the oxygen-starved zone to expand.

Plants growing in bowl — Although containers with no drainage can be interesting or attractive, there’s a risk that too much water will over-saturate the soil and drown the roots.

This is not usually an issue in wild soils, which naturally shed water downhill or let it drain down into the earth. In fact, rain carries dissolved oxygen into soil and pulls additional air down into the voids between soil particles as the water table drops. In a container, though, standing water crowds out voids for gas exchange and can block oxygen from reaching roots. After a few days without an oxygen supply, hypoxia can spread and kill off the entire root system. Then, the top of the plant will wither and wilt as if it weren’t being watered at all.

Drown-proofing indoor plants

The simplest way to protect containerized plants from drowning is to make sure the container has holes in the bottom to let excess water drain, pulling fresh air in behind it. A layer of gravel or sand at the bottom of a container doesn’t cut it; these only create stagnant voids rather than circulating air. To oxygenate the whole pot or container to prevent it from killing roots, there needs to be an opening for water to drain out at the lowest point, pulling fresh air all the way through. A shallow tray, only allowed to hold standing water for a day or two at a time, can catch excess water without creating dead zones, but a deep tray allowed to hold standing water for longer periods is risky. Coarse potting mix with perlite or vermiculite also helps oxygenate soil. A tropical houseplant will tolerate heavy watering in a container as long as excess water is allowed to drain and air seeps in.

A container with drainage holes and a shallow tray is all it takes to drastically reduce a houseplant’s risk of overwatering, allowing you to water more frequently and keep the soil moist for faster growth. This plant is a Senecio rowleyanus, or ‘string of pearls.’

Managing soil microbes

Plants from drier climates, such as cacti, aloes and other succulents, are more vulnerable to drowning. In addition to death from lack of oxygen, their roots face another threat: having evolved in dry soil, they don’t have the same level of natural resistance to the bacteria and fungi that grow in wet soil. If the level of water-loving bacteria and fungi in the soil builds up too high—even if the soil is still relatively oxygenated—pathogens can infect the roots and rot them out, or begin spreading up the stem and rotting the entire plant. This problem is even worse when arid-climate plants, used to the intense sun of the desert, are growing in the relatively dim indirect light of indoor spaces and become light-starved. With less energy to spend fending off disease, they’re more vulnerable to rotting when they’re waterlogged.

There’s no way to completely prevent disease organisms from reaching roots. Soil-borne fungi and bacteria are everywhere: their spores fill the air, settle on all surfaces, and attach themselves to stems and roots. Entire ecosystems of bacteria, slime molds, fungi, microscopic animals, viruses and amoebas live in every cubic inch of wild soil. There are far too many soil organisms to count—there are millions, and probably billions, of distinct varieties on Earth, each with its particular set of favorite conditions. Although the number of species is greatest in wilderness areas and mature garden soil, containerized plants still have a diverse array of microbes among their roots.

With so many species to deal with, and more coming in on every puff of air or grain of dust, we mostly trust nature to do its thing. By growing plants in conditions they’re naturally adapted to, we promote the best microbial environment for each type of plant. That means choosing the right substrate, and allowing soil to alternate between wet and dry to promote healthier roots.

Some types of plants call for coarse, sandy soil with more inorganic particles like perlite or bits of stone—with less food for decomposers, inorganic soils carry a lower microbial load (though they are far from sterile) and are better for plants that are at high risk for rot. Beyond that, alternate deep and thorough watering, which allows plant tissues to swell and store water, with letting the soil surface dry out. Microbes will multiply when the soil is wet, but the dry spells bring their populations back down before they become a threat. The wet-dry cycle replicates natural precipitation patterns, and plants are well-adapted to it, as long as you provide enough water with each cycle, and let the excess water drain out.

Underwatering

Wilting brugmansia — A brugmansia (angel’s trumpet) wilts in its container.

Compared to overwatering, underwatering is more straightforward. Living plant tissues are up to 90 percent water—thin cellulose cell membranes enclosing a soup of molecules that maintain life. While woody tissue is rigid on its own, leaves and stems need enough water to keep their cells pressurized and maintain their structure. If stored water drops below a crucial threshold, cells will lose pressure, wilt and die.

Not only do plants need water to stay alive—the same way animals need water or they will die of dehydration—plants use up water molecules when they photosynthesize. In direct figures, six water molecules combine with six carbon dioxide molecules to make a single molecule of glucose, which can be burned as energy, or attached in chains to make cellulose, lignin or other long-term structures as the plant grows. But under drought stress, plants close their stomata to limit evaporation and end up shutting down photosynthesis. Due to evaporative losses, it ultimately takes hundreds of water molecules to make a single molecule of sugar, and a chronically drought-stressed plant will stop growing.

Wilting, yellowing, dropping leaves or a lack of growth are all visual signs a plant might need more water. Plants should be watered enough to saturate the soil, until water starts to come out of the bottom of the container and fill the tray, and watered again when the soil is dry. Additionally, potting media that becomes bone dry can contract and lose its capacity to accept new water unless it is soaked for a few minutes or hours. If plants are being watered but still show signs of drought stress, check to see if the soil is still dry to the touch after being watered. If so, you may need to set it in a bowl or bucket for a few hours to let it swell, then remove it to let it drain.

Summary

Many houseplants can tolerate more water as long as they are in a container with drainage holes in the bottom that allow oxygen to penetrate the soil.

Putting sand or gravel in the bottom of a pot does not make up for a lack of drainage holes.

Cacti, succulents and other drought-tolerant plants should be planted in a course or sandy potting mix that dries faster and has less organic material to reduce the amount of decay microorganisms.

When you water, water plants generously—enough to saturate the soil until water pools in the tray.

After watering a plant, let the soil dry on the surface before you water it again. A wet-dry cycle is natural and healthy for plants.

If bone-dry potting media is letting water run though without soaking it up, it needs to be set in a deep bowl or bucket of water for a few hours until it begins holding water again, then allowed to drain.

How to grow a pineapple plant from a pineapple top

A young pineapple plant started from a pineapple top

Growing a pineapple plant from a pineapple top is a fun and simple gardening project to do with kids, or an easy way to get a free, low-maintenance houseplant that actually looks pretty good in your home.

A pineapple top rooted a few months ago producing a new set of leaves on top.

For an industrious plant-enthusiast there is a litany of ways to turn grocery store produce or kitchen scraps into live plants—sprouting mango and avocado seeds, planting ginger root or replanting the base of your onions. They’ll all get you something, but out of all the possible scavenged garden projects, pineapple plants grown from pineapple tops make for the most decorative and tidy houseplants that look just as nice as a plant you buy from a department store or nursery. They have an attractive symmetrical shape and interesting spiky leaves, they don’t shed or make a mess and they are easy to keep alive on a windowsill, tolerating both overwatering and underwatering without much fuss.

You need:

A pineapple with a nice, green healthy top

A container or flower pot that is at least 6 inches wide (ideally 8 inches), and has drainage holes in the bottom

A tray to go under the container (unless it’s built into the pot itself)

Potting mix

A knife/cutting board

Scissors (optional)

A bright windowsill that gets direct sun—ideally one that faces south

Putting it together

First, cut the pineapple top off of the pineapple as close as you can get to the spot wher where the foliage meets the fruit. Inside the cluster of leaves there is a short, thick, somewhat fibrous stem that can be difficult to cut through, so if you’re with young kids you might want to leave that part to the adults. Make sure to remove all the fruit from your cutting; it just rots and it’s not where the roots emerge.

First: cut the pineapple top off of the fruit and cut off all residues of fruit.

Next, strip off some of the lower leaves to expose at least a half an inch of the bulky stem. At the base of each leaf you may see a tiny bud or node—those are small roots, ready to grow on contact with soil.

Pull off some of the lower leaves to expose at least half an inch of stem. New roots will emerge from the exposed area after the cutting is planted.

You can trim off dead portions of the leaves or leaf tips as desired to make the cutting more attractive; it doesn’t make a huge difference for the plant unless there was so much brown that it was shading out the green leaves, but it will be more enjoyable to grow if it looks healthy.

I like to use scissors to clean up dead sections of leaves at the tips. It’s not crucial, but makes for a more attractive plant.

Fill your container with potting soil up to about 1″ from the top. Dig a small hole in the center for the pineapple top.

Plant the cutting deep enough to cover all
of the exposed stem and the bases of the lowest leaves.

Press the pineapple top into the soil so that the bare stem section is covered and so are the bases of the lowest remaining leaves. It’s OK if some soil gets into the crevices between the leaves. Compress the soil lightly around the plant.

A newly-planted pineapple cutting at the ideal depth.

Water the plant thoroughly, and place it directly onto your bright sunny windowsill. Pineapples need a lot of sun to root!

Be sure to place the plant close to a bright window to
root. An established plant is more tolerant of receiving less light, but cuttings prefer some direct sun.

That’s it!

Caring for the plant

Keep your pineapple cutting’s soil moist by watering it regularly until a some water drains through and collects in the tray. That’s how you know the soil is saturated. It’s OK to leave a little standing water in the tray; it will help keep the soil moist as some of the water is drawn back in. Leaf tips may brown a bit as the plant struggles to grow roots, and you can trim them back with scissors. But the rooting process does not take very long and the plants aren’t temperamental.

Resist the temptation to lift the plant to check for roots; you could break the roots and force the plant to start over. The first sign that roots have formed is that the leaves will suddenly begin growing, especially the young ones in the center of the plant. They’ll soon stand tall above the others. You can safely cut back on water when that happens, and even add a dilute fertilizer every now and then for faster growth.

Collect different types of pineapple plants

Commercially-available pineapples are grown from 5 main classes with several varieties or cultivars in each class. All pineapples of a particular cultivar are clones (propagated by cuttings). Pineapples can’t self-pollinate, and since they are only grown among their own clones they won’t produce seeds since the plant treats pollen from a clone as being from itself.

The varieties of pineapples in grocery stores lead to slightly different-looking pineapple plants; some form a taller and spikier plant, some form a stouter plant, some plants have a glaucus coating that gives them a nice blue tint and some are deep green. Some have serrated or barbed leaves and some are smooth. You can tell the difference by looking at the pineapple top even before you buy it. The plants may have slightly different light and water needs, but for your purposes at home you can treat them pretty much the same.

Will your pineapple houseplant produce fruit?

A note: you probably won’t ever get a pineapple from an indoor plant; in tropical areas they can form fruit in a year, but indoors the plant will tend to reach a certain size and plateau. It can live indefinitely. However, you can eventually force your plant to fruit by covering it in a plastic bag with a ripe banana inside; the ethylene gas released by the banana will trigger a hormone reaction that forces a small pineapple to emerge in a few months. If it fruits, the main portion of the plant will stop growing and 2-4 shoots will emerge from the sides.

A note on starting your pineapple top in water

Don’t. I know people are used to starting cuttings in water and for many plants it’s a very easy way to propagate them, so it’s the default strategy when trying a new plant. You can find dozens of guides online that tell you to root your pineapple top in a dish with water, but there’s really no reason for it. Pineapples are not tolerant of being submerged; they rot easily in water, especially if there’s any fruit left attached to the stem. Meanwhile, they root with a high success rate in soil. So skip the unnecessary step!