Make Acalypha yours

 

Photo credit: Gardendrum

With adequate food and water Acalypha ‘Macrophylla’ is outstanding

Fijian fire plant – how to grow Acalypha and its many cultivars

by Arno King

If you travel through the Pacific Islands or northern Queensland a plant you’ll find hard to miss in the gardens, parks and streetscapes, is the brilliantly leaved Acalypha, also known as Fijian Fire Plant, Beefsteak Plant or Salt Bush. These plants have large, medium or small leaves with flashes of red, yellow, pink and bronze. The leaves may be margined or striped with colour, and they may be rounded, narrow, triangular, rectangular, heavily toothed or quite lacy in shape. Plants also vary in size, from tall shrubs, some 3 to 4 metres (10-14 feet) high and wide to compact bushes less than 1 metre (3 feet) high and wide.

The name Acalypha comes from the Greek akalephes – a nettle. The genus includes some 450 to 460 species. Wilkesiana commemorates Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes, an American Naval Officer who explored the South Pacific during the late 1830s and early 1840s.

Despite their great diversity, the plants we grow are not hybrids, but are cultivars of one species,Acalypha wilkesiana. What’s more, recent research suggests they may represent mutations of a single or limited number of clones. Cultivated acalyphas, like many other popular foliage plants from the Pacific region, seem to be quite unstable and prone to throwing up branches of differing colour or shape. Occasionally they revert back to the parent plant, giving us an idea of their origins, but more rarely they throw up something entirely new. So keep your eyes open, as you might have something very special in your own garden.

Read the full article: Gardendrum

Grow your own mint indoors

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Growing Mint Indoors & How To Care It

Fragrant, fast-growing, and one of the most used culinary herbs– Mint can be grown indoors. Growing mint indoors is easy and doesn’t require many efforts!

Herbs can be grown indoors and mint is one of them. However, mint (or any other herb) growing indoors can’t grow as vigorously as outdoors. Still, you can enjoy those freshly picked leaves year-round, even in winters!

Read the full story: Balcony Garden Web

How to repot plants

 

 

Photo credit: Bedford-Sackville Observer

Learn how to repot plants the right way

Enthusiast? Enjoy foliage inside of your home as well

 

http://thechronicleherald.ca/bedfordsackvilleobserver/1407775-learn-how-to-repot-plants-the-right-way

People enjoy plants both inside and outside of their homes. Container gardening, which is a planting method in which flowers and other plants are grown in pots and other containers, is quite popular because of design versatility. Containers can be moved from location to location if plants are not thriving in a particular spot. They also make gardening possible when there isn’t any available land space, which might be the case for apartment-dwellers.

Flower pots enable plant enthusiasts to enjoy foliage inside of the home as well. Houseplants can add beauty to interior spaces and help filter indoor air. House plants have been shown to purify indoor air.

Several plants are particularly good at filtering out common volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Having plants around can create inviting spaces and improve healthy conditions inside and out.

Part of caring for plants in containers involves knowing when a potted plant might need a little tender loving care. As plants grow larger, they may outgrow their containers and require more roomy quarters. Without ample space, plants may not be able to adequately draw up water and nutrients to support top growth. Repotting may seem like it is easy, but it actually takes a little finesse so not to damage the plants.

Gardening experts like those from Fine Gardening, HGTV and Today’s Homeowner suggest these repotting tips:

Read the full article: Bedford-Sackville Observer

 

Choose interesting ornamental plants for your outdoors containers

 

Photo credit: Science Daily

Observations showed that hoverflies, skippers, and parasitic wasps (such as the sphecid wasp shown here on Coreopsis ‘Cosmic Eye’) were frequent visitors to butterfly and conservation gardens. – Credit: Bethany A. Harris

Ornamental plants for conserving bees, beneficial insects

Date:

October 13, 2016

Source:

American Society for Horticultural Science

Summary:

Insects play a vital role in ecosystem health, helping to aerate soil, keeping the natural system in balance, and preventing detrimental pests from taking over essential natural resources. Additionally, insects provide critical biological services such as pollination and biological controls. The authors of a study say that flowering ornamental plants have the potential to support beneficial insect communities, such as pollinating bees, wasps, and predatory plant bugs.

Bethany A. Harris, S. Kristine Braman, and Svoboda V. Pennisi from the University of Georgia conducted visual observations and sampled via sweep nets to assess the potential of flowering ornamentals to act as a conservation resource for pollinators. “By monitoring pollinator and beneficial insect occurrence within habitat management sites, ornamental plant species can be evaluated for their arthropod attractiveness and the provision of arthropod mediated ecosystem services,” said Bethany Harris, lead author of the study.

The research included visual observations and sweep-net sampling in four research plots at the University of Georgia’s Griffin Campus. The plots, called the “Butterfly” and “Conservation” Gardens, included 74 commercially available annual and perennial herbaceous and shrub ornamentals, including exotic and native plant species.

“The gardens attracted a diverse population comprised of pollinators (30+ species and 16+ families) and beneficial insects (20+ species and 9+ families),” Harris noted. Hoverflies, skippers, predatory plant bugs, and parasitic wasps were frequent visitors to Butterfly and Conservation Gardens. “In addition, species of native bees were identified in the gardens, suggesting that pollinator habitats could be created in southeastern landscapes using these taxa.”

Celosia, Gaura, Lantana, and Nepeta xfaassenii were some of the most-visited plants by both pollinators and beneficial insects. “This could be due to the vibrant colors, rich nectar and pollen supply, and the variety of floral inflorescences these plants possess,” Harris said. Agastache and Celosia were the most frequently visited by pollinators among 74 plant taxa.