{"id":3511,"date":"2021-10-12T06:05:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T14:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=3511"},"modified":"2021-10-12T06:05:36","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T14:05:36","slug":"foster-plants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/foster-plants\/","title":{"rendered":"Foster Plants"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scenario goes something like this\u2026A child wants a dog.\u00a0 All his friends have dogs and he is the only one without a dog.\u00a0 The child\u2019s busy parents, wary of another long term commitment won\u2019t agree to get a dog.\u00a0 The child chips away at the parents\u2019 resistance until they finally give in\u2014as long as the child will be responsible for feeding and walking the dog.<\/p>\n

A month later the neighbors notice that one or both of the parents have taken over most of the dog walking.<\/p>\n

\"Calathea<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 My daughter never wanted a dog; she wanted tropical plants.\u00a0 I admire many tropical plants, but prefer to admire them in shops, botanical gardens and the homes of friends with south-facing windows and warm, humid plant rooms.\u00a0 Back when my daughter lived at home, we enacted the \u201cdog scenario\u201d many times with alluring tropicals and I always ended up watering and caring for the m.\u00a0 Now, it has happened again.<\/p>\n

My daughter wanted a statement plant for her new apartment.\u00a0 She picked a large, showy prayer plant or Maranta leukoneura var. erythroneura.\u00a0 Fresh from the nursery, it bore a mound of\u00a0 big, paddle-shaped \u00a0leaves that hovered about eight inches above the top of the pot.\u00a0 They were breathtaking\u2014each one was dark green edged in a lighter shade, with a row of light green chevrons down the mid-rib, which also radiated\u00a0 rows of \u00a0thin, \u00a0red horizontal stripes.\u00a0 We bought a suitably dramatic tall pot and brought \u00a0plant and pot back to my house to lodge until my daughter got finished furnishing her apartment.<\/p>\n

Now, eight weeks later, my plant lodger has become a foster plant.\u00a0 What is worse, it has become an ailing foster plant.\u00a0 Many of the leaves have curled up and died and the remaining few look as if they might be going in that direction.<\/p>\n

How did this happen?\u00a0 Probably overwatering and \u00a0inattention, seasoned with a soupcon of resentment at having an unwanted tropical in my kitchen.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, I finally faced reality.\u00a0 If I did nothing, the plant would die and I would have to replace it with another.\u00a0 I would also have to explain it to my daughter, who happened to mention it in a phone call.<\/p>\n

So, I went back to the drawing board, via the internet, and figured out where it had all gone wrong.\u00a0 Prayer plants need well-drained potting mix and bright indirect indoor light.\u00a0 My foster plant had those things, residing comfortably in an east-facing window.\u00a0 It was getting regular water, as well.<\/p>\n

The bad news was that I had overwatered.\u00a0 In the fall and winter, prayer plants and other tropicals need very little water, as growth slows to a near standstill. \u00a0In spring, as the hours of daylight lengthen, the plants begin active growth and their water needs increase.\u00a0 My daughter\u2019s prayer plant was drowning, and, in fact, when I lifted it out of the tall pot, excess water dripped on the floor.<\/p>\n

It was not my finest\u00a0 horticultural hour.<\/p>\n

Fortunately the plant still had four fairly healthy leaves.\u00a0 I cut off all the dead leaves and repotted \u00a0the newly-trimmed specimen.\u00a0 In the week since, I have looked at it every day, but have not watered.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give it a bit of water over the weekend.<\/p>\n

The early news is good.\u00a0 The four survivor leaves have perked up and I see a new one about to unfurl.\u00a0 While I don\u2019t anticipate a return to lushness until next April or May, I have high hopes that the plant will survive until that time.<\/p>\n

The question \u00a0remains\u2014What do I tell my daughter when she announces that she is coming to pick up her lovely accent plant?\u00a0 I could lay the cards on the table and tell her the truth, or I could lie and \u00a0explain that the plant was obviously diseased when it came from the nursery.<\/p>\n

I think I will split the difference and tell her that the prayer plant is in the midst of seasonal doldrums and that I will hand it over to her next spring when it is better.\u00a0 In the meantime, I will offer her the original tall pot filled with rooted cuttings of purple-leafed\u00a0 spider lily or Tradescantia pallida \u2018Purpurea\u2019, which is beautiful, dramatic and tough as nails.\u00a0 She likes tradescantia, so chances are the strategy will work.<\/p>\n

In the coming weeks and months, while I fuss over the holiday amaryllis, the post-holiday paperwhites and the overwintering geraniums, I will keep a closer watch on my foster plant.\u00a0 With any luck, it will recover its former good looks by next spring.\u00a0 I will then deliver it to my daughter\u2019s apartment with a flourish.\u00a0 Having atoned for my horticultural sins and facilitated a prayer plant resurrection, I will then be entitled to a small sigh of relief.<\/p>\n

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The scenario goes something like this\u2026A child wants a dog.\u00a0 All his friends have dogs and he is the only one without a dog.\u00a0 The child\u2019s busy parents, wary of another long term commitment won\u2019t agree to get a dog.\u00a0 The child chips away at the parents\u2019 resistance until they finally give in\u2014as long as … 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":[1361,492,2600,2346,68,2599],"class_list":["post-3511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-foliage-plants","tag-houseplants","tag-maranta-leukoneura","tag-overwatering","tag-plant-sitting","tag-prayer-plant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511","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=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3513,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions\/3513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}