ZZ Plant - 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 - Zamioculcas zamifolia also known as ZZ Plant.

The most basic (Care-free plant) that thrives on 2 matters:

It tolerates very low light environment
( you can practically put it in a corner and forget about it)

It can handle extreme less infrequent watering regime.

Word of caution:

Too much water can cause rot to the root-ball, so its more on the dry / neglect type.
This plant is NOT the type that you water everyday unless the medium is fast draining.

It does appear like a plastic plant,

the foliage are glossy and has a swollen thick base like stem.
They are super slow growing plant - so do note that they will ages to grow.

A great plus point about this plant is that this one is a natural air purifier. 

That comes with another factor: - when it absorbs all the poison from the air,

these are considered poisonous if consumed.

When this plant was introduced to the market, It was sold with a very high price.

I know these were considered highly priced:
often sold as a lucky plant price spanning with a good luck No:8.

Meaning: Its was sold like RM88.00 or RM188.00 more No:8 were attached to it
and a novelty plant during the Chinese New Year Festival

Then came a Jump Scare:

Some tabloid newspaper & magazine had started a rumor saying this plant causes cancer.
Followed together with the panic posting in social media about this rumor
had caused a lot people started throwing out this plant out of their door (literally)

I would see this plant in pots abandoned in sun and rain.

Burned, turning yellow and often rot due to heavy exposure to rain.

Its a sad predicament for a highly priced plant suddenly lost its value. 

The Rumor:

Someone had experience sniffing the flower.

The supposed inflorescence bears pollen or the fragrance had caused cancer to the gardener. Based on that particular gardener, hence he / she wanted to warn everybody to get rid of this plant, stating - its better to safe than sorry.

I must emphasize that this plant is indeed toxic and its poisonous if consumed.

But aren't most ornament plants toxic?

What I want to emphasize is that plants have their reasons to be toxic.

Nature intended that way:

Their composition element is base due to deter animals & insect from eating their foliage. Hence - that's why the poison (they are not vegetables)

Another thing, I realized that gardening is not for the soft-hearted.

It's dangerous and a gardener may have to face many challenges.

One may have to face all the creepy crawlies, reptiles and wild life.

Face the insect world head on: Bees, Wasp, Hornets, Scorpions, Spiders & Centipede.

I'm pretty sure some had wage war with Ants and other vermin & pest.

With all been said above.

I think ZZ plant is much easier compared to other dangerous 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.

CONCLUSION:

Do not place this plant near you (like at the dining table / work table)

Put it far where you can see and enjoy looking at the beauty but (see no touch) location.

Keep it far from children & pets or any chance of accidentally brushing or bruising the plant.

And wash your hands if you handle this plant when watering or touching it.

Cactus Garden - Part 2

Tiger's Jaw (Faucaria Tigrina)
They seemed to require more watering than the weekly routine. Seemed like too much watering can also cause stem & root rot. So perhaps 4-5 days light watering can bring the best for this type.

These are the most easiest of cactus. 
They had given out so many shoots over time that make-up 90% of my collection. I think once they establish in the pot - they tend to sprout out pups slightly from the trunk and eventually put out roots and fall taking out all the immediate space available within the rim of the pot.

Silver Squill.  - Ledebouria socialis

I had hard times with one.
Often end up rotting and barely surviving. Too much water kills too less water kills.
Somehow it had managed to established here with the cactus collection and doing very well after a very long period of time.

This succulent was rescued from the dump. 
The leaves didn't look like this when I picked it up.
 It was totally bare with few damaged leaves and stumps. 
It took almost a month to put up new sprouts and its totally beautiful. It has a powdery dust on the leaf surface like find gloss and its quite sensitive as they can easily snap when handled.

I have yet to identify the name of this plant yet. 
Right now there are more shoots coming out from these stem & doing very well so far.

I had placed my ginger plant here due the rat harassment that it always get its shoot bitten. For some time it got dormant and never recovered. This is a different type of a root family - I suspect it could be a similar kind of the herbal root type.

Other sharp pointy plants.
African Milk Tree
And ZZ plant - currently infested with scaly bug which I need time to administer poison over them.

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.