Deb Ringler speaking at Roger’s Gardens!!!

Come join Debra Ringler as she shares her years of experience in the field of Interior Landscaping with her hands on demonstration that is designed to equip you in the care of your indoor plants. Whether you are a newcomer to indoor gardening or an avid hobbyist, this seminar will inspire you and help you to venture into the wonderful world of interior plants, no matter how small your endeavor.

Where: Roger’s Gardens

2301 San Joaquin Hills Road
Corona Del Mar, CA 92625-1195
(949) 640-5800

When: Sunday, March 14, 2010 from 9am-11am

For more information, visit Roger’s Gardens Events Page

Plant of the Month – Chamaedorea plumosa ‘Baby Queen Palm’

Chamaedorea plumosa ‘Baby Queen Palm’ is perhaps one of the best new palm introduction for it versatility and appearance.  A moderately fast growing palm, with a vertical profile ideal for today’s space-constrained interior environment.  Also, an exceptional exterior palm for Southern California, not overcrowding or overgrowing our ever-common world of smaller yards.

Chamaedorea Plumosa, is its real name but better known as ‘Baby Queen Palm’ has fronds like a queen palm, but with a truck that looks like a bamboo! Using this palm indoors, like any palm, requires a high light area near a window or skylight.  It prefers not to get too much heat and would definitely do better in a sub-irrigation container.

You will not seem design-challenged when adopting the Chamaedorea Plumosa into your home/office.  It makes a perfect specimen plant in a Modern, Asian or Tropical Designed home or office. Although, even more stunning would a grouping of these plants look as a loose screen to divide a room!  Just be sure you have tall ceilings because Baby Queen Palms can grow up to 15’ in their life, leaving their gorgeous trunks exposed down below.

Green Tips for the Holidays: Part 2

Last year Deb wrote a wonderful article on how to GO GREEN FOR THE HOLIDAYS and I thought I’d follow up with some of our favorite ideas and links for a Greener Holiday this year.  This year we’ve been trying our best to practice what we preach and have found that shopping local is not only easy and fun, but incredibly yummy! So, that leads me to our first Green Tip:

ADD ORGANIC & LOCAL FOODS TO YOUR HOLIDAY FEAST
Support local family farmers who grow sustainable meat and produce. Not only does it taste better, you’ll be doing your part for the planet too. Visit one of Orange County Farmer’s Markets for delicious and nutritious foods for your holiday meal.

MAKE YOUR OWN WRAPPING PAPER
Most mass-produced wrapping paper you find in stores is not recyclable and ends up in landfills. Instead, here’s a great chance to get creative! Wrap presents with old maps, the comics section of a newspaper, or children’s artwork.  If every family wrapped just three gifts this way, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.

RECYCLE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE
Ninety-eight percent of Christmas trees were grown on farms, not in forests, so at least it’s not as if you’re cutting down an ancient tree. Each year, 10 million Christmas trees end up in the landfill. While your tree won’t fit in the recycling bin with your newspapers and bottles, you can recycle your tree: many cities offer programs to turn your tree to mulch or wood chips. Call (800) CLEANUP or visit www.earth911.org to find the tree-recycling program near you.

GIVE THE GIFT THAT GIVES BACK!
Donate to the favorite charity of the person you are giving to.  If you have a gardener in your family, have a tree planted in their honor.  If you have a pet lover in your family, donate to one of the numerous animal shelters or rescues in the area.  If you have a humanitarian in the family, donate to a local homeless shelter.  Feel doubly good about giving and giving back!

MAKE MEMORIES NOT MISERY!
Don’t let yourself get caught up in the madness. Remember what the holidays are really about. Family and Friends. Give experiences instead of stuff. Buy tickets to a show, a ball game, or a scenic train ride instead of dust-collecting knickknacks. Tailor the gift to the recipient: club or museum memberships, craft or hobby lessons, IOU for a home-cooked meal, an afternoon of gardening help, free babysitting, and so on.  Remember the simple pleasures of just being with those you care about.

USE LESS AND USE LED
Your house doesn’t have to light up the whole neighborhood to show your holiday spirit. So this year use a few less lights to help save energy.  Plus, switching out any old Christmas lights with LED will not only make your display brighter and more colorful, but will also be good for the environment.

The holidays draw out the best in most of us each year. But they also bring what seems like an environmentalist’s worst nightmare: tons of extra garbage, millions of chopped-down trees, and megawatts of flashing lights. With a little tweaking, however, everything from holiday gift-giving to light-stringing can celebrate the environment, too. So, think about giving back to your environment this holiday season, it doesn’t take much, but you can feel good about helping this beautiful world we live in.

Plant of the Month – Amaryllis

There are many ways to make your home more inviting for the holidays, including the usual Christmas lights, trees, wreaths and ornaments. However, if you gardeners want to really dazzle your guests this year, show them a display of bold and beautiful amaryllis blooms.

Amaryllis are the easiest to bring to bloom and grow among the holiday plants.    And with flowers that can reach as large as 10″ across, Amaryllis will give you an exotic alternative to the traditional Poinsettia or Paper-White bulbs.  Garden Centers usually start stocking the bulbs in the fall. Pick them up right away and get planting them, because they take 6-7 weeks to push out their fabulous blooms or if you are in a hurry, some nurseries have them planted and already about to bloom.

The amaryllis originated in South America’s tropical regions and has the botanical name Hippeastrum.  Their flower colors go from white to deep red and include some eye-catching stripped varieties.  You can expect your Amaryllis to bloom 7-10 weeks and can be grown easily indoors in a pot with soil around the base or sitting on a vase without holes with only it’s roots submerged in water.

The nice thing about amaryllis is you can get a repeat bloom from them the following year. Unlike poinsettias, which quite frankly, can be kind of a pain to force the following year, amaryllis are fairly simple to get to re-bloom the following year.

Plant of the Month – Rhapis humilis

Resembling it’s not so distant and more common cousin  Rhapis excelsa, this Slender Lady Palm has thinner stems and slightly drooping leaf segments that make for a more graceful appearance.  The dark green leaves of Rhapis humilis are about the same size as R. excelsa, but are more divided and split into about twelve leaflets per leaf.  The thin stems are wrapped with light brown fiber and shoot up from the soil like bamboo, giving R. humilis an elegant and somewhat far east look.

Slender Lady Palm is thought to be a native to China, but has completely become extinct from living in the wild and only now survives by propagation of a single male plant that survived.  As a result, every plant in the world is derived from a division or culture of this plant, making Rhapis humilis impossible to grow from seed.

Growing Rhapis humilis is similar to growing Rhapis excelsa.  They are both slow growing and enjoy well drained soil that is moist but not soggy.  They need bright light, but like any palm will deteriorate if the air is too dry and stagnate.  R. humilis is not as easy to locate as R. excelsa or as available in large specimen sizes.  Being such a rare beauty in the interior industry, I have mostly seen them in 5 or 7 gallon containers growing around 4-6 feet tall and not more than 3 feet wide.

Slender Lady Palm is quite a looker and used as a screen or a stand-alone specimen plant in your abode you most definitely will not be disappointed.   I would recommend a topdressing of stones, glass or mood moss to really show off how stunning this plant can be.

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