Wouldn't you love to see yourself surrounded by tropical flowers and plants with intriguing aromas and fragrances that fill the air with their perfumes, giving you the feeling you have been swept away to a tropical paradise?
Well, it's not impossible to grow tropical plants, even in colder climates. Most of the tropical plants are suitable for containers and as house plants. Why buy expensive palms, succulents or orchids, just to discover, they have been grown in greenhouses under tropical conditions and won't make it, when they get transplanted. Grow your own plants from seed. It is cheaper, a lot of fun to watch them grow and the best of all, they don't have to go through a 'climate change', because they get used to your conditions from the beginning.
I am addicted to plants, mainly tropicals, since I can think back. In my earlier years, when I lived in Germany, where the winters are long and cold, I went from nursery to nursery to find the exotic beauties which I wanted to have in my home. Most of them looked very pretty for only a few weeks, until they either slowly died or didn't even survive the first couple of weeks.
"What am I doing wrong" was what I asked myself over and over again. Obviously it wasn't all my fault. I treated them, following the instructions, but never had a great success. Then I thought, it may be, because they are sensitive to climate changes. They are grown in tropical greenhouses and once they arrive in my garden or home, they don't have the same tropical conditions like they had before. They don't have the same constant temperature and humidity, in which they grew up. Discovering this, I finally gave up buying tropical plants and started to buy seeds instead.
I sure am not a natural talent, that buys the seeds, grows them and voila, tropical plants all over the place. It was a long process until I came to this point. The first thing I had to learn was exercising patience. Tropical seeds can sometimes need several weeks or even months until they germinate and somebody that wants to see immediate results, should rather plant indigenous wildflowers.
The second important lesson I had to learn was, ordinairy potting soil alone won't do the trick. Humidity and good drainage is a must. Common potting or garden soils have no components with value. I would say it's dead soil since it is so dense that it is similar to clay in its ability to retain water when wet and disallow oxygen to flow through it. Mostly, if you spend a bit more money and buy fertilized soil, you also find a lot of foam balls in it. They are supposed to make the soil fluffy, but don't do any good, because they cannot keep the moisture and dry out very quickly.
I've been always cheap with my soils and made the right mixture myself. What I can highly recommend is to buy a bag of common potting soil, a bag of peat moss, a bag of sand, a bag of gravel and a root stimulating powder. You can get all these ingredients in every garden center. First fill the pots /containers 1/4 with gravel. This garants that the water will not sit on the bottom of the pot and make the fresh developing seedling rot. Now you can mix your soil, with half and half potting soil and peat moss by just adding a handful sand into it.
The peat moss makes your soil fluffy and is a great moisture keeper, while the sand helps for good drainage.
Well, it's not impossible to grow tropical plants, even in colder climates. Most of the tropical plants are suitable for containers and as house plants. Why buy expensive palms, succulents or orchids, just to discover, they have been grown in greenhouses under tropical conditions and won't make it, when they get transplanted. Grow your own plants from seed. It is cheaper, a lot of fun to watch them grow and the best of all, they don't have to go through a 'climate change', because they get used to your conditions from the beginning.
I am addicted to plants, mainly tropicals, since I can think back. In my earlier years, when I lived in Germany, where the winters are long and cold, I went from nursery to nursery to find the exotic beauties which I wanted to have in my home. Most of them looked very pretty for only a few weeks, until they either slowly died or didn't even survive the first couple of weeks.
"What am I doing wrong" was what I asked myself over and over again. Obviously it wasn't all my fault. I treated them, following the instructions, but never had a great success. Then I thought, it may be, because they are sensitive to climate changes. They are grown in tropical greenhouses and once they arrive in my garden or home, they don't have the same tropical conditions like they had before. They don't have the same constant temperature and humidity, in which they grew up. Discovering this, I finally gave up buying tropical plants and started to buy seeds instead.
I sure am not a natural talent, that buys the seeds, grows them and voila, tropical plants all over the place. It was a long process until I came to this point. The first thing I had to learn was exercising patience. Tropical seeds can sometimes need several weeks or even months until they germinate and somebody that wants to see immediate results, should rather plant indigenous wildflowers.
The second important lesson I had to learn was, ordinairy potting soil alone won't do the trick. Humidity and good drainage is a must. Common potting or garden soils have no components with value. I would say it's dead soil since it is so dense that it is similar to clay in its ability to retain water when wet and disallow oxygen to flow through it. Mostly, if you spend a bit more money and buy fertilized soil, you also find a lot of foam balls in it. They are supposed to make the soil fluffy, but don't do any good, because they cannot keep the moisture and dry out very quickly.
I've been always cheap with my soils and made the right mixture myself. What I can highly recommend is to buy a bag of common potting soil, a bag of peat moss, a bag of sand, a bag of gravel and a root stimulating powder. You can get all these ingredients in every garden center. First fill the pots /containers 1/4 with gravel. This garants that the water will not sit on the bottom of the pot and make the fresh developing seedling rot. Now you can mix your soil, with half and half potting soil and peat moss by just adding a handful sand into it.
The peat moss makes your soil fluffy and is a great moisture keeper, while the sand helps for good drainage.
If you have tiny seeds like solanum fruits, Night Jessamine, Gardenia or Aztec tobacco, plant them surface and just push them with your hand a little bit that they have a good contact to the soil. Add a bit root powder, water well and cover the pot with a plastic sheet. Some seeds need light for germination, some don't, so either put the pots behind a window or under a growing light or just let them somewhere, if they don't require light for germination. You don't need to water too often, you can just control, if there are still water drops hanging on the plastic sheet or not. If it looks dry, water again and cover again. You shouldn't have to water more than every 3-4 days.
If you got some good sized seeds like palm seeds, banana seeds or orchid tree seeds, don't use a pot for germinating but a plastic baggie. Put the seeds together with the moist soil mixture into it, seal it and place the bag on a warm place like on top of the refridgerator. Constant warm temperature is very important for germination of tropical seeds.
You can control your baggie from time to time, but don't expect to see early results. If one day you see the first seeds germinating, immediately expose them to bright light. You can now get them out of the plastic baggie. Grab them cearefully and push them a little bit into the pot that you have prepared for them. Again a plastic cover will help to maintain the needed humidity. But now you need to make a plastic dome rather than a sheet. You want the seedlings grow, don't you? The best way to do this very inexpensive is to just put a glass over them. When they got a few inches tall, you can remove the glass. To keep the humidity around them high, spray them from time to time with a mister, at least once a day.
And now enjoy your tropical beauties!
When I harvested my first seeds of home grown plants, I sold them in Ebay, soon became a powerseller and opened an
Now, 3 years after selling seeds from around the world in addition to my home grown ones, I opened my own web store
where you can find a variety of tropical and exotic seeds, that blow you away.
Come on in and visit me there, I bet you find something of interest, if you like starting plants from seed.
Come on in and visit me there, I bet you find something of interest, if you like starting plants from seed.
