Hand-Me-Down

Hand-me-downs (passing outgrown clothing to the next youngest sibling) have gotten a bad reputation over the years as undesirable and second-rate (not necessarily accurate) but in the garden they can be a boon to smaller plants. Yesterday’s repotting of the Areca Palm freed up the ceramic pot it was sitting in (as a jardinière) for my little Chinese Evergreen. The plant is an offspring of my friend G’s mature one; I had never seen one this small.

The small terra cotta pot I in which, I originally planted it tended to dry out too quickly. The non-porous ceramic pot will hold moisture better but it has to have a layer of gravel or broken pottery in the bottom for drainage. One of my garden books says it grows well even in water alone—with a little charcoal*.

Since Chinese Evergreens do well in low light, this one was a natural for my studio. Everywhere else the sun has returned in abundance.

*Crockett's Indoor Garden;(Little,Brown & Company)26

Room to Grow

About a year ago, I decided that I needed some of God’s creation in my studio to inspire my creativity so plants were the obvious solution since I have neither the room nor necessary commitment for an aquarium. The trouble is, and this makes for many difficulties, though my studio window faces south, the deep overhang makes for little natural light. Since I’m very fond of palms and I knew that Areca Palms were fairly easy to grow, I bought a tiny one for my worktable. My friend G. who has a deep green thumb started has with a tiny one and has grown it as tall as I am (average height)! Despite the low light and my latent discovery that they like “high light”, my little palm has at least doubled in size over the past year or so.


Between its increasing size and occasional dried out branches, I decided that it’s time to move the Areca out of its flimsy three inch plastic pot to a nicely designed red-violet non-porous five and one half inch pot. The extra two and one half inches suit it well and the red-violet color will look a lot better in my studio.

The Areca palm is also known as “Yellow Palm” and needs to be kept “thoroughly moist at all times”*, which is why a non-porous pot will work the best for it in the dry indoor air. The Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Houseplants also says that it’s a slow grower, adding only eight inches per year even in the best circumstances—a plus in indoor close-quarters. Slow growth also keeps the cost of repotting to a minimum as well as the weight of carrying it when it comes to moving time.

It rained so hard this morning that the rain uncharacteristically drenched my newspapered potting set up—but fortunately I got it done without my getting wet. And now the sun is peeking through.