GREEN FINGERS
Giving a plant a new home in your garden could require repotting or adjusting the shade By Normita Thongtham
Giving a plant a new home in your garden probably requires repotting or adjusting the shade for best results.
Merry Christmas! Today is a doubly auspicious day, for Christmas falls on a Sunday only once in seven years. Even in Buddhist Thailand, Christmas is a time for celebrations and for immersing one’s self in the spirit of the season. For ardent gardeners, however, the holiday season is no excuse to stop tinkering in the garden. A few days ago, I noticed that my potted spathiphyllum, known in Thai as daylee, looked good only after it had just been watered. Hours later, its leaves were limp as they became dehydrated, while all the other plants around it were growing well and did not need watering again in a day or two.
The spathiphyllum was showing signs of being pot bound. The plant had several pups and had thus outgrown its container, with roots coiled inside the pot, preventing the soil from absorbing water. Without moisture, the plant would eventually die, so it had to be repotted.
Before repotting a pot-bound plant, water it first to keep it moist. Wait until the water has drained before you remove the plant from the pot. If it is difficult to remove, don’t pull it out forcefully or it will be cut off at its base, rendering it useless. Instead, lay the pot on its side and thump around it to loosen both the soil and the plant from the pot.
Tease out and straighten the roots with your fingers, then use pruning shears to separate the pups from the mother plant. Remove some of the roots if there are too many, or cut short the ones that are too long. Plant each pup and the mother plant in separate containers, using an equal mixture of loamy soil and organic matter like compost, leaf mould and finely chopped coconut husk as a planting medium. Water thoroughly after planting, then after two weeks, or when the plants are already established, feed them a pinch or two of balanced fertiliser (NPK 15-15-15 or equivalent).
As I was already in a replanting mood, I also repotted a copper sansevieria which was already bursting at its seams with pups, although it had not yet shown the signs of being pot bound. I ended up with five spathiphyllum and seven copper sansevieria happily growing in their own pots. The spathiphyllum do not like sun so I put them in a shady place; the sansevieria can be either in full sun or partial shade so I placed them where they could get a few hours of sun each day.
One of the joys of gardening is seeing your plants grow and multiply. Seeing them in bloom is even more gratifying, but not all plants are the same. Some bloom nearly all year round while others are seasonal or bloom only some months of the year. If you want flowers most months of the year, plant Tabernaemontana pandacaqui, known in Thai as put roi malai, Tabernaemontana divaricata or put jeeb, and Wrightia antidysenterica or put pitchaya. All three are easy to grow and as long as they get enough sun they are diligent bloomers.
Although the above-mentioned shrubs are called put in Thai, they belong to the family Apocynaceae and are not related to the various species of gardenia known as put, which belong to the Rubiaceae family of plants. Other Apocynaceae family members which will brighten up your garden nearly all year round are the countless adenium ( chuan-chom) and plumeria ( lantom) hybrids, whose flowers come in many different forms and colours; oleander ( yito) and the different species of allamanda ( banburi). From the Malvaceae family, dozens of hibiscus hybrids will brighten up your garden with colourful flowers all year round.
Thailand is a gardener’s paradise as there are so many kinds of plants and most are very cheap. You can choose to grow only plants with fragrant flowers, such as rose, jasmine, gardenia, butterfly or ginger lily, butterfly bush, ylang-ylang and more. Or you can grow only variegated plants, or ornamental plants with colourful leaves, like croton and aglaonema hybrids.
In fact, you can grow just about anything, but remember that unless they are aquatic, plants need well-drained soil rich in nutrients so amend your soil with organic matter. Potted plants need more frequent watering than those planted on the ground, but once the plants are established, water them as needed, or when the top inch of the soil is dry to the touch.
Like people, plants are better able to fight disease if they are healthy. Applying a pinch of fertiliser every month is better than giving your plants a handful once in a blue moon. Or you may use slow-release fertiliser — it is more expensive than the ordinary ones but you don’t have to apply often as it is good for three months. Whether you are using slow-release or not, water your plants thoroughly after giving them fertiliser.
If flowering plants do not bear flowers or if a foliage plant is leggy, it is because they are not getting enough sun. Be attentive to your plants so that you can get rid of insect pests at the first sign of infestation without having to use pesticides.
Keep the above reminders in mind, for you are now reading Green Fingers for the last time. As the year draws to a close, it is also time to say goodbye. But first, I would like to thank readers who wrote to ask questions or to say they liked this column. You were the driving force that kept it alive for more than 12 years.
Lastly, may the New Year bring you all the best that life could bring. Happy gardening!