Sansevieria - Best Indoor Plants

I would like to introduce a New Series on Indoor Plants

and hope to come up with 10 Best Indoor Plants for Beginners.

And this is one of the most easiest to begin with.

It is fairly impossible to kill this plant.
(If you do - I should congratulate you for it)

Let me introduce this plant
- Sansevieria also known as Mother In Law Tongue Plant or Snake Plant.

THE BEST REASON TO GROW THIS IN YOUR LIVING SPACE

1) Best Bedroom Plant:

Unlike other types of plants which only converts CO2 during the day time,
This plant converts CO2 to O2 at Night.
And for that very fact is a big deal especially in a closed bedroom

2) Absorbs Toxins from the Living Space:

According to NASA study,
this plant is capable of purifying air by removing some toxin element
such as formaldehyde, xylene and toluene from indoor environment.

3) Extremely Care-Free Maintenance Plant

This plant can tolerate both low light & bright light areas.

Also you can neglect on the watering regime. It can tolerate infrequent watering.

This plant is more on the dry side. It can rot if over-watered or water-logged.

MIL Plant is slowly picking up its trend as there are new hybrids are introduced in market. Its more popular now as their ecstatic element where it doesn't need high maintenance. You can practically place them in a shelf and leave there for ages.

There are few matters to consider before starting the collection.

Identifying it's variety:

There are the tall sword-like very, it's broad and expands and the other more of a mini dwarf varieties. There are also the variants between these two - the medium version. All hybrids are extreme slow growing plant in comparison to the basic originals. So do consider that it may take ages for it to overgrow its original pot.

PEST ATTACK:

Do watch out for snails & slugs which does extensive damage making holes on the succulent leaves. And so, its important to use snail bait to deter them from making this horrible damage.

Also scale insect can be a horrible mess when they envelop layers of layers on thin crust over the foliage surface. Scraping and wiping the leaves can prove futile.

There are so many new hybrids that had been introduced in the market currently that it's truly an adventure to seek, collect and exchange them among gardening friends. There are a huge variety now that I may dare say it can be quite a challenge as they are not highly sought after.

Below are the MIL Plants sold in the Sg Buloh nursery.

They are indeed fairly expensive for a common easily available plants.
I guess there are still a good demand in the landscape industry for these plants.

I must say that this genes is excellent for poor soil medium area.
Also perfect for stone gardening theme - the Xeriscape Garden Theme or Landscaping.

Interior Garden & Figurines

This is actually the top of my book rack, its by the window side. I had an idea of placing plants by it and found that mother in-law tongue plant seemed to be the best candidate for this arrangement.

I wanted something green and alive. Earlier I had tried with the palm orchids & kalanchoe but they have failed. Somehow these have been doing very well, probably it would have been 3 years now. I had placed them in bottles with little soil and only water them like once a month with very little water - just enough to see them disappear (or vapourise) within the walls of the bottled soil.

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This is a project where my son & I had decided to decorate with all the nature stuff. We had collected some seashells and some saga seeds and stick it on our "Staircase of Fame"

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The work is this in progress, there is a lot of ideas and thoughts to work on this but nevertheless its still a progressive, slow and a dedicated work - I really don't think it would be complete anytime soon.

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If its not for those hummingbirds & the glass pebbles, it would be a boring composition.
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Garden Centre - Foilage Collection (part 2)

These are the plants sold in the supermarket very near to my place. I often check out & see what new arrivals that had been sold here. Somehow I noticed that they seemed to be selling so good hardy plants with a good price and some rare interesting ones with an expensive price tag.

I have been eyeing for this one, it had red leaf borders, I thought it is a dumbcane but its actually a Aglaonema genes. It is selling for RM17.00 - for me its quite expensive for it (unless a few of us share the plant RM5.00 - would be reasonable)

Still in my thoughts - this red one.

Those below are the various dumbcane (Dieffenbachia) species, interesting but not so attractive to me. Currently I have 3 types of dumbcane species and I think it is good to just maintain just that (as these species are just of the same colour but have different pattern/shape on the leaves)

This one is interesting. At close inspection - I found that there is white spots on the leaves.

These devil ivy or pothos do not have yellow/white streaks on them. And the one below have a big leaf to be trailed on a potbound. Usually I see these trailing on treetrunks freely growing wild for this size.

An interesting miniature Ti plant.

I have not seen this one (top) I guess its a new cultivar.
These Painted Nettle (coleus) are sold for RM3 - considered a very good price. If one can propagate and make these many, it would be worth it to share among friends.

This one is known as (Spotted Dracaena) Dracaena surculosa. The more common green one is so much easier to propagate and grow. (just cut the branch and stick it in the soil) I had many of those and had got bored with it. Infact, they even root in water but I found that the more complex the variegation, the difficult for it to grow or propagate.

This is the lucky bamboo (the varigated type)

This one is known as a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum) I had this one before but it died due to wet soggy soil and lack of sun. I just got it again and may have to be a little more watchful (happens when plants taken for granted and they die)

It often found that this is one of the coveted plants, rarely have I found that this is been propagated or passed around as they are expensive.

My mum have this plant, I understand it must be an easy plant to take care but too much care (overwatering, feeding or soggy soil) may cause crown rot.

(took me sometime to google and find its name: ZZ plant (Zamioculcas Zamiifolia)

Also found that this is considered a beginner's plant as it can take a lot of neglect but a terrible slow growing plant.

I found this interesting mother in law tongue plant with flowers. (its rare to find them flower unless the soil had been in conditioned with fertiliser that makes them bloom)

These are some of the collection of cactus plants. Not so much favour these as often times they don't grow fast or may die for some strange reason. Somehow, they look cute with all the coloured fine gravel that been decorated at the base of the pots.