Let’s turn our hobby of gardening into a pursuit of gift-giving.
Here in our window garden, there in our outdoor garden, the materials are at hand.
Many plants can get started from slips or cuttings, by divisions or offsets, by air-layering, and even by seeds.
And plants are always given a warm welcome for birthdays or anniversaries, Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, Easter or Christmas, invalid or shut-in, whatever the occasion or excuse.
Instead of having bought that silver-plated backscratcher, which set you back a pretty penny, for Aunt Matilda’s birthday, why shouldn’t you have given her one of your prized African violets, which you started?
(She probably scratches her back on the bedpost or handiest door jam, anyway!)
What finer gift could you have given her than one in which you had put a part of yourself, your skill, your patience, and your thoughtfulness?
Add a touch of glamor by growing gift plants in any of the many attractive planters on the market.
Choose one that is simple in design, efficient, and tastes good. Myself, I prefer the wick-fed plastic planters such as are used for growing African violets.
Only one of those shown in the illustrations cost over 50 cents, and some were much less.
Get Ideas From Their House
When you visit friends’ homes, study your surroundings for ideas, making mental notes of what plants you would grow and where if this were your abode.
Perhaps the mantel needs the softening effect of trailing philodendron; the coffee table would look more attractive with a small foliage plant or an episcia;
This rather gloomy corner could be animated by a shade-loving plant, or the window garden needs the bright touch of a flowering plant.
Then, when you return home, see what you have on hand to offer.
Excellent Gift Plants
African violets, as mentioned, are always welcome gifts for any occasion at any time of the year. Propagation methods are so well known that they bear no repeating here.
Far more lovely and less temperamental than African violets, in my humble opinion, are the episcias with their leaves in jewel-like tones of amethyst, topaz, and emerald; of copper, bronze, platinum, and silver.
Mostly, the leaves are hairy and velvety, but some are smooth.
Flower colors are scarlet, sky-blue, yellow, or white, and there is a fringed white—Episcia dianthiflora—whose blossoms resemble a carnation pink.
Like African violets, episcias can be propagated from single-leaf cuttings in damp sand, sphagnum moss, vermiculite, or even plain water.
Runners of mature plants, too, can be cut off and rooted easily in any of the above mediums.
Cuttings of angel wing begonias root readily in water any time of the year and make truly handsome gifts.
Please do not overlook the lowly wax begonias, those amiable plants that cheer any invalid or shut-in with their gay little blossoms.
Cuttings, of course, are commonly started in water.
Still, I find a better method is placing sphagnum moss, thoroughly wet, directly in the planter and then setting as many cuttings as will make an attractive planting in the moss.
By keeping a constant supply of water in the tray of the wick-fed planter, rooting will be rapid, and I lose no cuttings from stem-rot nor find any shriveled leaves as I frequently do with the water method.
Repotting is unnecessary, as the plants, once rooted, will thrive as happily in the moss as in soil if a schedule of liquid feedings is followed.
Rhoeo discolor, or Moses-in-a-Boat as some call it, is a choice foliage plant, which offers an additional bonus in the form of a bloom, and will not go begging long for recipients.
The pandanus-like leaves are dark green above, a vivid purple beneath, and the plant produces two flattened bracts, boat-shaped, in which clusters of tiny white flowers are enveloped.
Numbers of these bracts grow close to the stem, and the plant produces offsets Nvhich are easily rooted directly in the soil.
A variegated form, Rhoco vittata (Moses-in-the bulrushes), has leaves dark purple beneath and striped yellow above.
Combination Plantings
One of my inexpensive productions is received with great warmth because of how it is presented.
This is the Hawaiian “Ti” plant (Taetsia fruticosa). I grow these in long planters in rich soil; then, for an artistic touch, I tuck air fern into the ground at each end of the farmer.
The result for a minimum outlay is a glamorous creation I could not buy at a florist shop for under three or four dollars.
The “Ti” logs and the air fern are frequently found in clime stores or your local supermarket.
In purchasing the records, select those that have already sprouted, and you will have less trouble getting them started.
Incidentally, before making combination plantings, ensure you know your plant material—their likes and dislikes, culture, and habits.
Do not wed a sun-lover with a shade-lover; neither one that likes it warm with one that likes it cool; nor one that likes it moist with one that likes it thy.
One or the other must suffer, and your gift planting will not long remain attractive.
In your hobby of growing your gifts, there are philodendron and ivies, cacti and succulents, begonias and geraniums, mantas, and dieffenbachias to supply you with the material.
The list is inexhaustible, and even though you specialize in only a single type of indoor plant, you can have quantities of gifts on hand.
And if some flowering plant does not bloom when you are ready to present it, be not disturbed—give it anyway; no emotional crisis will be created.
Why do so many insist that plants for gift-giving must be in full flower?
Half the pleasure to a fellow plant-lover is in the element of surprise and the sense of accomplishment experienced in watching the plant come into bloom.
44659 by Keith S. Phillips