Tag: houseplants for shade

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Bring positivity to a dreary autumn day by forgetting the outside world and focussing on creating your own miniature plant world!  My step-by-step terrarium planting guide will help you plant your own long-lasting indoor centrepiece to enhance your home this autumn and winter.  Get ready to make the most of the longer evenings getting busy designing your own plant paradise!

Terrarium plants

A terrarium creates a perfect environment for small plants that thrive in low light levels and high humidity. 

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Garden Designer Jackie Currie and Plant Heritage won a Gold Medal for their ‘National Plant Collections Everywhere!’ exhibit at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021!  This stunning exhibit showcased plants from National Plant Collections grown inside living rooms, glasshouses, gardens, and allotments, across the UK.

One of the stars of the exhibit was the Salvia caymanensis, grown by John and Linsey Pink who hold a National Collection of Salvias. 

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RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2021

For one year only, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show 2021 has moved to September!  How has the change of date affected this event?  Moving from a late spring show to an early autumn spectacle has opened Chelsea’s door to allow new VIP (very important plant) access for late summer flowering perennials, berries, seed heads, dahlias, pumpkins, tomatoes, and vegetables!

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Discover Orchids That Will Thrive In The Temperatures You Can Provide!

I’m so excited to show you the orchids I’ve grown that favour cool, intermediate, and warm temperatures!  I want to help you find the perfect orchids for the conditions you can offer, so I’ve created three new planting lists that divide the orchids I’ve grown into groups by the temperatures these plants are happiest growing in.

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I spend a vast proportion of my time running Indoor Trials and Outdoor Trials.  When I’m working on Orchid Trials, I find it such a thrill to discover beautiful miniature orchids that look stunning visually, but are also easy to grow and flower.  I love to write about these plants to help you discover orchids that aren’t demanding or difficult to grow. 

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An Update on the Aerangis & Angraecum Orchids inside my Tall Orchidarium

I set up my Tall Orchidarium in November 2019.  I am absolutely thrilled with this custom built terrarium, which Matthew (from Custom Aquaria) built for me in autumn 2019.  I’m growing a large number of orchids inside my Tall Orchidarium, so I’ve divided up this update (which covers the period from November 2019 to March 2021) into three posts of slightly more manageable sizes. 

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Growing Microgreens & Edible Sprouting Seeds Indoors

One of the many joys of growing our own food is that this wonderful process allows us a marvellous opportunity to eat freshly harvested fruit, vegetables, and herbs, which usually have a dramatically improved flavour and freshness compared to the equivalent alternatives we can purchase in our local supermarket.  Usually, when we imagine growing our own produce, we think of a process that takes anywhere from between a number of months to a number of years to produce vegetables, fruit, or herbs. 

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Tall Orchidarium equipment update

Welcome to the first update for my Tall Orchidarium!  I set up my Tall Orchidarium in November 2019.  This update reveals how the equipment inside my Tall Orchidarium has performed over the past 15 months (from November 2019 until February 2021).

If you would like to find out how the Angraecum and Aerangis species I’m growing inside my Tall Orchidarium grew from November 2019 to March 2021, please click here.

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Do you have enough houseplants? I don’t know about you, but I’m always willing to make room for more indoor plants.  If you’re considering purchasing a new houseplant and you’re keen to make a lasting purchase, hoping for the long-term, leafy love affair we all dream of, then I have some fabulous ideas for you…

Ceropegia linearis subsp. woodii is also known as String of Hearts or Hearts Entangled. 

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Building a Tall Orchidarium

In November 2019, I set up this new terrarium, which I’ve christened my Tall Orchidarium.  I designate a name to each of my terrariums to help you more easily find every article relating to the particular terrarium you’re interested in.  If you want to know more about my Tall Orchidarium, you can find all of my articles that relate to this terrarium by clicking here.

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Things to look our for when you’re setting up a new Terrarium

I’m currently in the process of setting up a new terrarium, which is very exciting!  Don’t worry, I’ll take you on a tour of my new Tall Orchidarium in due course.  However, today I wanted to tell you about something unexpected that happened to me, while I was gathering together the materials for this new enclosure.

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An Update on the LED Lights, Misting Unit, & Equipment inside my Orchidarium

In February 2017, which (as I write to you in September 2019) was over two and a half years ago, I decided to build an Orchidarium to house some of my miniature orchids, with equipment that supplied the plants with automatic lighting, misting, and air circulation.  Inside my Orchidarium, this automated plant care is provided by a misting unit, a hygrometer, LED lights, and fans. 

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Orchids flowering inside my Orchidarium today!

I designed this Orchidarium in 2017; it was constructed in the early spring of 2017.  If you’re interested in the materials I’ve used, you can see the step-by-step process of my Orchidarium build here.  I thought I’d share some of these pretty orchid blooms with you.  These orchids are all in bloom inside my Orchidarium, today.

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How to Control Red Spider Mites on Orchids and Indoor Plants

Spider mites are a serious pest of orchids, indeed they are a pest of a great many other plants too, but with the warm weather we’re experiencing in the UK, today I wanted to remind you about the importance of controlling spider mites on orchids and other indoor plants.

Spider mites thrive in hot, dry conditions. 

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Controlling sciarid flies around houseplants and inside terrariums, on plants grown inside our homes, conservatories, and glasshouses What are sciarid flies?

Sciarid flies are teeny, tiny flies, from the family Sciaridae, they’re also known as fungus gnats, or by their genera’s scientific names of Bradysia or Lycoriella.  Although sciarid flies live outdoors, as the flies are so minute in size, you’re unlikely to notice these insignificant little flies outside. 

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Orchids with Crystalline Flowers

I find that a little sparkle is especially welcome at this time of year.  With this in mind, I’ve produced animations of some of the orchids I’ve grown that produce crystalline flowers, to hopefully bring some sparkle and plant related joy to your Christmas!

These absolutely fabulous orchids, produce flowers that naturally have a little hint of a sparkle within their petals – their flowers glisten in the light. 

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I love looking at this orchid; I so admire Angraecum distichum‘s shape and form, this plant’s simple, leafy stems are a thing of beauty.  I love to see young and old Angraecum distichum specimens; whatever the plant’s size, I find Angraecum distichum utterly mesmerising!

Angraecum distichum is a miniature to small sized epiphytic orchid species.  Angraecum distichum plants can be found growing upon a range of tall trees in a variety of different environments including: rainforests, humid forests, deciduous forests, and plantations. 

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Miniature Orchids in Flower today!

It’s so wonderful to be able to share these photographs that I have taken of my orchids’ latest flowers with you – these photographs are of the very same inflorescences that are open now – these are the orchid blooms that I am enjoying today – I hope that you’ll enjoy these miniature orchid flowers with me. 

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I love terrariums and bottle gardens!  I so enjoy designing tiny plant worlds and creating miniature gardens.  This is the ideal time to build a terrarium or bottle garden, these Lilliputian microcosms are fun to make!  Terrariums will enhance your home and provide the perfect gardening therapy through the autumn and winter months.

The photograph above shows some of the ingredients that I use to formulate my own compost mixes for terrariums and bottle gardens. 

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I planted this glass terrarium especially for the readers of October 2018 edition of Vantage Point Magazine.  This is a simple glass globe, planted with some attractive, but easy to find terrarium plants.  You can see all of the plants that I used for this terrarium, in the planting list below.  If you’re interested in any of these plants, click on an individual plant page for more information, where you’ll also find links to every article I have written for pumpkinbeth.com