I was very excited when BiOrb contacted me to see if I was interested in trialling their new BiOrb AIR 30. This is a smaller sized terrarium than the BiOrb AIRs you’ve seen in my earlier BiOrb AIR Trials (see my Miniature Orchid BiOrb AIR Trial, my White Orchid BiOrb AIR Trial, my Madagascar BiOrb AIR Trial, and my Long-term BiOrb AIR Trial).
Back in January I moved house. It was a nerve wracking and anxious time, made more difficult because I grow a lot of plants inside terrariums, bottle gardens, and orchidariums, which I can’t bear to be parted from. These enclosures all needed to be emptied and washed up, and the plants and glassware required careful packaging and wrapping.
Chilli pepper and sweet pepper plants grow slowly and can take longer than we expect to reach maturity and produce peppers. January is my favourite time to sow chilli and sweet pepper seeds, as it gives the plants a longer growing season with extra time for fruit to develop and ripen, compared to the standard spring-sown plants.
I’m feeling so grateful today. I’m grateful to the special people and plants that I share my life with. I relish sharing information about stunning houseplants that are easy to grow and will happily bloom through the autumn and winter months. This is when the nights are longer, the days are shorter, and we spend more time indoors – when flowering houseplants can brighten up our days and evenings!
Houseplants are almost magical; they can make a dull room look and feel inviting and transform a dreary room into a luxurious and relaxing space. In this article, I’ll reveal some of the secrets that will ensure your houseplants retain their magic!
First of all, always grow houseplants in containers with holes at their base that allow water to run through the pot and enable air to reach the plant’s roots.
I adore orchids and houseplants. I get so much enjoyment from being surrounded by foliage and flowers and I simply love growing orchids and houseplants. Since Brexit, the range of orchid nurseries open to UK customers has dramatically reduced. Thankfully, we still have a number of UK nurseries who are growing orchids in Britain. Love Orchids are a small family-run, British company, based in Southern England.
Welcome to my first update on the Phalaenopsis and other orchids I’m growing inside my Tall Orchidarium.
I first set up my Tall Orchidarium in November 2019 (18 months ago). If you would like to start at the beginning and see how my Tall Orchidarium was designed and set up, please click here.
I am absolutely thrilled with my Tall Orchidarium.
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.
I hold two National Collections of orchids – a National Collection of Miniature Aerangis and Angraecum Species and a National Collection of Miniature Phalaenopsis Species. I set up these collections to raise awareness of the dangers that these miniature orchid species (and other plants) are facing in the wild and to help conserve these fascinating plants.
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.
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.
Chilli pepper seeds are usually sown from February to the end of April. However, these vegetables command a long growing season, requiring sufficient time for the plants to mature and their fruit to develop and ripen. Accordingly, I find that chilli peppers are best started from seed sown in January.
Nurseries stock a limited range of chilli pepper plants in springtime, but gardeners who grow chillies from seed are blessed with the choice of a vast range of varieties.
I thought you might enjoy following one of my Aerangis citrata orchids through the course of the year; so I’ve been regularly updating this diary to give you the chance to get to know this orchid better. To make it easier for you, I’ve dated all of my photographs, so you can more clearly see the rate of this plant’s growth and development.
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.
Happy Thanksgiving! If you’re celebrating today, I wish you a joyful and uplifting day of celebration. Today, I’m celebrating my Thanksgiving cacti, which are keeping perfect time and flowering for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving cacti (also known by their botanical name, Schlumbergera) are easy to care for, long-lived houseplants that thrive in shaded and semi-shaded conditions. Unlike traditional cacti, which grow in bright and sunny, dry and arid conditions; Thanksgiving cacti flourish in a humid environment, away from bright sunshine.
This is Deinostigma tamiana, a truly marvellous plant that thrives inside terrariums and bottle gardens. Deinostigma tamiana is a Gesneriad species from Vietnam. If you’ve not seen it before, yet Deinostigma tamiana looks somewhat familiar, it’s probably because these plants are related to African violets (Saintpaulias).
Growing Deinostigma tamianaDeinostigma tamiana is an easy going, adaptable plant that’s content growing in a range of terrarium environments.
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.
Four or five years ago, two of my favourite people in the whole world gave me this lovely Thanksgiving Cactus. I love this plant because I associate it with two people that I love very much but also because this cactus is a fun, easy going, and reliable houseplant that flourishes inside my home, in less than bright conditions.
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.
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.
