{"id":2284,"date":"2017-12-03T15:21:57","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T23:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2284"},"modified":"2017-12-03T15:21:57","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T23:21:57","slug":"proudly-polka-dotted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/proudly-polka-dotted\/","title":{"rendered":"Proudly Polka-Dotted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madagascar is an island nation off the south coast of Africa with unique climates and topography.\u00a0 It is probably best known for vanilla beans and lemurs, with the lemurs taking the prize for visibility ever since their cinematic star turns in The Lion King<\/em> and the Madagascar<\/em> movies.<\/p>\n

Polka dot plants or Hypoestes phyllostachya also hail from Madagascar, but they are nowhere near as celebrated as either vanilla or lemurs.\u00a0 That said, you are unlikely to find a lemur at your local garden center or big box store.\u00a0 Polka dot plants are another story.\u00a0 Any retailer that stocks foliage plants, sells these colorful specimens, which feature green, teardrop-shaped leaves splashed with bright pink, red or white spots or blotches.\u00a0 The red ones may also feature red leaf bases.\u00a0 In my experience, pink splashing is most common.<\/p>\n

A member of the Acanthaceae or acanthus family, polka dot plant is also known as \u201cfreckle face\u201d, \u201cflamingo plant\u201d, baby\u2019s tears\u201d and \u201cmeasles plant\u201d.\u00a0 Clearly \u201cpolka dot\u201d is a better common name.\u00a0 Sometimes neither the words \u201cpolka dot plant\u201d\u00a0 nor any of the common names will appear on plant tags.\u00a0 Growers or wholesalers often substitute catchy varietal names like \u2018Confetti\u2019 and \u2018Splash\u2019 instead.\u00a0 This does not help the educated consumer, but probably grabs the attention of casual plant buyers.<\/p>\n

According to the handy tag attached to a recently purchased specimen, the plants were \u201cfirst grown in English homes in 1840\u201d.\u00a0 This is logical, as 1840 was not long after England established a foothold in Madagascar.\u00a0 The debut of polka dot plants also coincided with a period in horticultural history when Europeans were introduced to a large number of imported plants.\u00a0 Victorian life may seem drab to twenty-first century observers, but they relished colorful plants.<\/p>\n

These days, most of us see polka dot plants as easy-to-care-for foliage specimens or container arrangement fillers.\u00a0 They have a nice mounding habit and the varieties for sale in most establishments rarely grow more than about four inches tall and four to six inches wide.\u00a0 Given the opportunity, however, those color-splashed plants can take up considerably more real estate, growing up to one to two feet tall and up to one foot wide.\u00a0 This probably happens most often outdoors in warm winter climates or indoors in large containers luxuriating in warm greenhouses.\u00a0 The authorities at the Missouri Botanical Garden classify the plants as broad-leaf evergreens, but most indoor gardeners treat them as annuals.<\/p>\n

Polka dot plants are easy to grow, requiring filtered sunlight, which means that you can save your sunniest indoor spaces for species that need even more light.\u00a0 Give the polka dots rich soil, water when the soil surface dries out and feed with diluted liquid fertilizer according to package directions.\u00a0 Pinch stems back from time to time to promote bushy growth.\u00a0 If the ambient humidity is low, it is helpful to mist every few days to emulate the plants\u2019 native climate.\u00a0 Because their requirements are minimal, polka dot plants play well in container and dish gardens with other indoor stalwarts like begonias and kalanchoes.\u00a0 They also make excellent terrarium specimens.<\/p>\n

Most people have never seen polka dot plant blooms, but they are small, purple and appear atop flower spikes that hover over the leaves.\u00a0 Some gardeners simply lop off the spikes, as they do with coleus and other plants grown primarily for colorful foliage.\u00a0 Doing so eliminates visual distraction, if you are troubled by such things, but it does not harm the plant.<\/p>\n

Sadly, the production of flowers may also signal the demise of the polka dot plant, as specimens tend to go dormant after the flowers fade.\u00a0 Because life is short and polka dots are so ubiquitous and inexpensive, it is probably best to whisper a fond farewell to the spent plant and replace it with a healthy young one.<\/p>\n

Is a polka dot plant as cute as its fellow Madagascar native, the ring-tailed lemur?\u00a0 Probably not, but the plants are cheaper, easier to care for and will stay put in a container.\u00a0 That is something to consider as you select the species that will take up residence in your home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Madagascar is an island nation off the south coast of Africa with unique climates and topography.\u00a0 It is probably best known for vanilla beans and lemurs, with the lemurs taking the prize for visibility ever since their cinematic star turns in The Lion King and the Madagascar movies. Polka dot plants or Hypoestes phyllostachya also … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[1775,1361,1772,492,1771,1773,1031,1774],"class_list":["post-2284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-dish-gardens","tag-foliage-plants","tag-freckle-face-plant-flamingo-plant-babys-tears","tag-houseplants","tag-hypoestes-phyllostachya-polka-dot-plant","tag-measles-plant","tag-terrariums","tag-victorian-plants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2284"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2285,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2284\/revisions\/2285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}