Apparently gardeners in Ohio are lazy because the Plain Dealer recommends you replace all your difficult to grow plants with the easy to grow Sansevieria.
One reason for the drop in popularity of house plants is that so many varieties were just too difficult or demanding to grow….
Probably the easiest house plant to grow is the… extremely hardy houseplant is sansevieria….
Low light, low water – easy is right.
Size-wise there are two types, low-growing Bird’s Nest (Sansevieria trifasciata) that is perfect for a desk or table, or the old-fashioned taller varieties that look spectacular in an 8-inch or larger pot….
The taller types are definitely old-fashioned, but the bird’s nest types can actually be very modern and quite appropriate even for your well-designed home.
A study by NASA found that it is one of the best plants for improving indoor air quality by passively absorbing toxins such as nitrogen oxides and formaldehyde.
NASA got in the act studying sansevierias too? Nice!
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October 26th, 2011 at 9:04 am
I wish you had noted that a tolerance for low light is not the same thing as a preference for low light.
October 26th, 2011 at 10:05 am
We grow them in north light in the greenhouse (they put out more offsets in low light). We do tell people that if they put them in more sun they’ll have to water more often too.
October 26th, 2011 at 11:23 am
I meant more that most people’s interpretation of “low light” is not a large, unobstructed north window. It’s more like “eight feet from a blind-covered, north-facing, 1′x2′ window, behind a room divider, in a corner, next to a 5W bulb we never turn on, under a cardboard box.” And then they come back 6 months later and want to know how come the leaves are all skinny and flopping over the edge of the pot.
October 26th, 2011 at 11:51 am
We do let our customers know in person what we mean by low light. A common refrain for me when talking about houseplants is that “All plants need some light” and then showing them UV full spectrum light bulbs.
Or to put it another way, I go for quantity not quality here on the blog.