184 Spring Houseplant Care

Show Transcript

GB 184 TRANSCRIPT Spring Houseplant Care 

Farmer Fred  0:00  

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot. 

Farmer Fred  0:32  

Spring isn’t just for outdoor garden tasks. Your houseplants need some springtime love, as well. We chat with the author of “Houseplant Warrior”, Raffaele DiLallo, about your houseplants’ needs for the right light, the right humidity, and he has a list of easy care houseplants for low light conditions. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, Raffaele also has houseplant advice for those who must muddle through cold, dark winters, as well. And we talk about his business, OhioTropics dot com, and yes…he is growing outdoor tropical plants in Cleveland, even a banana plant! Also, we get a Quick Tip from America’s Favorite Retired College Horticulture Professor, Debbie Flower, who explains how careful pruning of outdoor plants can lessen the threat from pests and disease.  We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. And we will do it all in under 30 minutes. Let’s go!  

Farmer Fred  1:38  

My next guest has been growing houseplants for over 30 years. His name is Raffaele DiLallo. And Raffaele has a new book out called, "Houseplant Warrior: Seven Keys to Unlocking the Mysteries of Houseplant Care. It's a wonderful book, and he has a wonderful website as well, Ohio tropics.com. And Raffaele, It's interesting how you got into the houseplant habit. It was due to your father's habit.

Raffaele DiLallo  2:08  

That's right. So my my father smoked quite quite heavily when I was growing up,  he's done up to two packs of cigarettes a day. And I just hated it. And I remember, I think I started growing houseplants sometime in grade school or middle school. And my family's always garden. So as long as I can remember, I was growing plants. But the houseplant thing started because I think I had read somewhere when I was a kid that houseplants cleaned your air. And of course I liked plants to begin with. But that was a good excuse to start to hoarde houseplants. So I started filling up our all of our window sills and our windows and in middle school.

Farmer Fred  2:49  

That's a very David Sedaris-type of thing to develop as a child, very good. I like that. And what's interesting, too, is a your college degree is in chemical engineering.

Raffaele DiLallo  3:00  

Yes, it is. And I actually just quit my corporate job back in November of 2021, to focus on my website and my blog, and my writing and everything else that will crop up from this.

Farmer Fred  3:14  

And congratulations on that, too, starting up the blog in 2017. And having it zoom to the top of the charts. You've put a lot of work into that. And all your consultations and a lot of other things that we will point out on this  little journey we will take here today. Ohio tropics.com. Talk a little bit about your website.

Raffaele DiLallo  3:35  

Sure. So it's funny how it started, because I started five years ago, and like you mentioned, it was in March, actually. And it all started because one of my friends who was moving from the West Coast to the Cleveland area where I am, she called me and she said I think you should start a blog and she said I follow this one lady out west. And you know, I receive her newsletter and she tells me what I need to do, things with my plants. And she said I found it's so helpful. And she said, "You know so much about plants, I think you should start a blog." And so when I get excited about something, I go full force. The next day, I started my website and I I had always thought about it, but that  was the catalyst to really, really, actually do something about it. So that's  how it all started. When it initially started, I almost wish I hadn't chosen the words, "Ohio Tropics", because I don't want to regionalize myself but it originally started because I wanted to start writing about growing tropical plants outside in cold weather gardens to give them a tropical flair. So that's really how it started. And I did start talking about writing about orchids as well. But that was the idea behind my blog, but then it's segued into pretty much all houseplant care and tropical plant care from there.

Farmer Fred  5:00  

Well, here's our first scenic bypass of the day. What sort of success have you had growing tropical plants outdoors in Ohio?

Raffaele DiLallo  5:08  

Oh, gosh, it's wonderful. And it's about to get easier for me because I'm about to get a greenhouse this spring, which I'm super, super excited about. I mean, I've overwintered some stuff, you know, indoors, some stuff I treat like annuals, and then other things come back. And some people may be shocked to know that you can grow. There's a hearty banana plant that you can grow in all 50 states if you have protection, but where I live, you would need some winter protection. And I get lazy though. And so one one year I planted this Hardy banana, Musa basjoo is the botanical name. And it came back the second season and it got maybe nine or 10 feet tall, it was spectacular. But I think the area that I planted it in, we have really bad, heavy clay soil here. And we had a particularly wet winter that second winter that I was trying to overwinter it, so it rotted. But I am going to try again this year, put it in a better location. If you have good, well drained soil that's not staying super wet in the winter and you mulch it, in my area, it will come back and it's really cool to be able to grow something like that in my area as well.

Farmer Fred  6:22  

Cleveland is in which USDA zone?

Raffaele DiLallo  6:24  

If you look on a map, there's  a little strip right along the lake that supposedly USDA Zone 6A. Otherwise I'm not quite sure. I believe that where I am in might be bordering 6A or 5B. So it really depends on where you live within the city.

Farmer Fred  6:43  

All gardening is local, as I used to say a lot. And as you point out, every yard has a microclimate where you can do a little zone extending and try out different plants. I would think in your situation, trying to grow basically what we would grow outdoors here in USDA zone nine, outdoors there, you're doing a lot of work in in pots, I would think.

Raffaele DiLallo  7:08  

I am. I do a lot of things in pots. And like I said, it'll be easier once I get my greenhouse. I could just shove them in the greenhouse, thinking about the microclimates in our old house. Before we moved, I have a couple more examples that might be very interesting for whoever's listening. The importance of microclimates. And really the power of them. If you can create one, a suitable one, so I actually had elephant ear, so you know, just a plain old Colocasia esculenta,or taro roots. And I planted them in in my backyard in my old house in the corner. So there was a nice protective corner, next to my where our air conditioner was. And the house itself had aluminum siding. But the bottom of the house had a strip along the base of the house, it was brick. And so I planted it right in that corner, right next to the brick. And those things came back every single year with no added protection, or mulch. And so I got this gigantic, huge clump of these Colocasia that came back every year. And I was shocked. But  that's the microclimate and the soil there; it dried out sufficiently and it didn't stay wet in the winter. And next to the brick I'm sure that helps with maintaining a warmer microclimate. And then one year I even had dahlias come back in a bed that I had in the  front garden.  That had a little bit of mulch at the time, we have very unpredictable weather here. So it can vary drastically. You can be surprised what you can grow if you have a good microclimate.

Farmer Fred  8:53  

Were those elephants' ears growing on a southern or western exposure?

Raffaele DiLallo  8:59  

So those were actually facing east. Yeah, so they would get some morning sun and  midday sun and then nothing after that.

Farmer Fred  9:09  

All right, because here in California, if you're growing elephants' ears, and we can grow them outdoors, you're growing them on the north side of the house, because they need a lot of shade here.

Raffaele DiLallo  9:19  

Yeah, and I find that they can tolerate a lot of sun as long as you keep them well-watered

Farmer Fred  9:28  

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Farmer Fred  11:24  

We're talking with Raffaele DiLallo, author of the book "Houseplant Warrior", available wherever you get your books. Let's talk about raising house plants in Ohio and in cold climates. I know a little bit about houseplant care here in California, obviously. But what sort of precautions do people in USDA zones six, five and even lower have to take? What are some of the considerations that they have to keep in mind?

Raffaele DiLallo  11:51  

Like you said, it can vary a lot depending on where you live. And the number one thing that comes to mind is light. I know yourself you know living in California, you don't have to worry about that. But where I live, and I think it's not even the USDA zone, but I feel  that's very important as well. But where I live, I feel like we're cursed. Our geographical location here on  Lake Erie, especially on the east side of Cleveland,  we have really dark winters and very cloudy days, were one of the cloudiest cities, I believe, in the country, especially in the winter. And with the shorter days and the clouds it can really pose a challenge to growing houseplants. So what I like to do, at least in my sunroom,  I have supplemental lighting  that I added. I actually have them year round, but it especially helps out during the winter time when we have those really short days. Plants can really sulk if they don't have enough light in the winter time with yellow leaves and  reduced growth, they'll struggle. So light definitely is the number one thing, of course,  temperature as well. Actually another thing to be to be aware of, and this is something that I see with a lot of my readers,  we have all these, cold long, horrible days, many months of that. And so if you live in a cold climate like I do, and suddenly you have a nice warm day, outside, many people are tempted to just  pick up their houseplants and put them outside in the sun straight from indoors. And  they think they're doing something beneficial. What a lot of people don't realize is you can't just move a house plant from indoors, straight outdoors immediately to full sun, even if they are Sun loving plants. You cannot do that abruptly. Otherwise they'll burn.  I had someone reach out to me,  she had her String of Pearls plant, and it was a nice day. She put it outside in the sun for a few hours and it totally bleached out. I explained to her, even if you have a sun loving plant, you have to put it in the shade for a few days, assuming the temperature is okay and warm enough for your particular plant in order to let it get acclimated enough but then you have to slowly introduce more and more sun so that it doesn't burn. So that's something that a lot of people struggle with. And it's not that the plant doesn't like sun. You just have to acclimate the plant slowly enough so that it doesn't burn.

Farmer Fred  14:22  

One thing we've heard often when it comes to light and house plants, some people insist that if there's enough light in the room to read a book, your plants will be happy. Myth or truth?

Raffaele DiLallo  14:34  

I've heard that as well. And I would say definitely for certain plants, that's probably fine. So certain low light plants would probably be fine with that and if you're on the low end of  barely being able to read, it's probably not enough  for most plants to really thrive. A lot of plants will tolerate that: your peace lilies, Snake plants or sanseiverias, which are now classified in the Dracaena genus. They'll hang on for a while, but eventually they'll  slow down and suffer, too. Chinese evergreens, too, would tolerate that type of environment. Pothos is a great one, heartleaf philodendron is also another one. So there are some plants that will definitely tolerate that. But you know, don't expect them to thrive if you're on the low end of that light spectrum.

Farmer Fred  15:23  

And we should point out, as well, that in your book, "Houseplant Warrior", you highlight many of the plants you just mentioned. And it's a great little encyclopedia you have included in your book.

Raffaele DiLallo  15:33  

Thank you. There's also the myth of certain plants that are low light that people think they're labeled low light, too. In many cases, like snake plants, and also rubber trees, like an elasitica. But in fact, and I'm sure you see this in California, many people have those outdoors in full sun, and they thrive that way. So,  light is paramount. And just because something is labeled low light doesn't mean that it likes low light, it just means that It tolerates low light, in many cases.

Farmer Fred  16:03  

One of the dirty little secrets about growing plants outdoors in California is the fact that the stretch of coastal California from San Diego up to Eureka doesn't have that much sunlight. There's a lot of overcast marine layer fog that persists. And yes, you can get away with growing a ficus benjamina in full exposure in a place like San Francisco, or Santa Barbara or San Diego. But when you come inland, that's when the heat takes over. That's when the intense sun takes over. And that's when the humidity levels drop, too. Here in the Central Valley of California. It's not uncommon this time of year and into the summer ,of 10 to 20% humidity during the day or less. Whereas over on the coast, you've got 50, 60, 70% humidity because of the marine layer. Now I would think there in Cleveland, you don't have to worry about humidity levels in the summertime but in the wintertime, I would think that with heating units or fireplaces, do you have to supplement the humidity because you mentioned in your book that houseplants like a humidity level of 50 or 60%?

Raffaele DiLallo  17:14  

Yes. I like to think of plant care holistically. So there's a lot you have to  consider. All the factors, like your water, your pots, your potting mixes, all of that works together, including humidity, temperature, and I talk about that in depth in the book in terms of the relationship between all those factors, but definitely for indoors here, I do run a humidifier in the wintertime in my sunroom. Elsewhere in the house, I don't. But in the sunroom, I do run a humidifier. Many of our houseplants are native to tropical rainforest ecosystems. And so they do like higher humidity. But that being said, what's most important is being able to water properly. So if  you're letting a lot of your leafy tropical plants dry out, get bone dry as far as their potting mix is concerned, that's going to cause a lot more harm to your plants and a lot more crispy brown edges on your leaves than low humidity ever will. Now that's not to say that humidity is not important. If you have both, that's awesome, that's wonderful. But I like to point out to people that proper watering is more important. My indoor air can get painfully dry and I noticed from my skin, too. My skin gets dry and flaky. It can get into the 30th percentile of relative humidity indoors. So I do like to run a humidifier in my sunroom. At least in the 50 to 60 range if I can. Another thing to remember is if you increase your humidity levels that we we have to be aware of air circulation because you know we don't have wind indoors like we do outdoors. And so that becomes very important to try and prevent any fungal issues. So I have a ceiling fan that I put on low, sometimes, to just circulate the air a little bit so so that's an important factor, too.

Farmer Fred  19:10  

That's a very good tip. You mentioned earlier that you do use supplemental lights. Describe your lighting systems.

Raffaele DiLallo  19:16  

Yeah, so I experiment with different lights and so right now I use several different ones in my sunroom. Right now I have two, they're basically like shop lights and they're just fluorescent T5 fixtures, and  they're working very well. Although I might switch it out to to some LED lighting.  I do have some plants and some LED lights in other areas of the house, in my basement. I have one over my terrarium. So I have some LED lights. Full spectrum, white LED lights that are performing amazingly for the plants. I don't like those purple LED lights that you see, that's a personal preference. I think they're just not aesthetically pleasing and there's enough of a selection out there that you can easily avoid that. But I'll probably at some point,  get rid of these T5 fluorescents and do LEDs instead.

Farmer Fred  20:17  

Are the T5's four foot fixtures with two bulbs in them?

Raffaele DiLallo  20:20  

Yes, the skinny bulbs. That's exactly what they are, 

Farmer Fred  20:25  

And what is the distance from that light to the plants? 

Raffaele DiLallo  20:28  

The long side of the sunroom window faces north, and then the short side of the wall faces east. And so I have those right above, near the ceiling of my north facing wall. And as far as the distance goes,  I vary it depending on what the plant likes. So right now, I'm looking at  a burro's tail succulent, that's literally just a few inches under that. And then I have some plants on the floor as well. So I adjust the distance, depending on how much light the plant actually likes.

Farmer Fred  21:05  

All right, lighting very important, especially where it is, like you say, dark in the wintertime there. This has been a pleasure talking with Raffaele DiLallo, author of "Houseplant Warrior: Seven Keys to Unlocking the Mysteries of Houseplant Care." The website is Ohiotropics.com. And if I'm not mistaken, you're also on Instagram.

Raffaele DiLallo  21:24  

I am. Ohiotropics, one word. I'm on Instagram. I'm also on YouTube, and Facebook as well.

Farmer Fred  21:32  

There you go. Raffaele DiLallo, author of "Houseplant Warrior." I would say thanks for a few minutes of your time. But thanks for a very extended conversation about houseplants.

Raffaele DiLallo  21:42  

Thank you so much for having me, it's been a pleasure to talk with you, Fred.

Farmer Fred  21:50  

Because there are so many demands on your time these days, I like to keep the Garden Basics podcast to under 30 minutes. Still, there is a lot more to tackle on all the garden subjects we bring up on the podcast. So, for that, and a lot more, we’re starting up The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter, on Substack.  As the newsletter grows, so will the subject matter. So, yes, it will be a good supplement for the Garden Basics podcast, but there will be a lot more garden related material and probably pictures of my dogs and cats, as well. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter on Substack. And best of all, it’s free! There’s a link in today’s show notes. Or, just go to substack.com, and do a search for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. That’s substack.com. The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. Did I tell you it’s free? It’s free. 

Farmer Fred  22:52  

On a previous episode (Ep 181), we were discussing the chemical Imidacloprid, which is a systemic for controlling all sorts of garden pests. And Debbie Flower mentioned this on that episode:

Debbie Flower  23:03  

"Sap comes out of the plant, comes out in pretty high pressure. And the sucking insect often gets more than they can consume. And so it just goes right through their body or leaks out. And that's something that the ants like. And so the ants will protect the sucking insect from the beneficials. So I put out ant traps. If I had to take it a step further, there are much less toxics pesticides, including some of the horticultural oils that I could have used on the scale that would suffocate them. Insects breathe through their rear end. And so it would clog up their breathing pores. That would have been my next step. But I didn't need to do that. All I did was prune, to open up the plant and control the ants."

Farmer Fred  23:48  

Well, that raises some interesting questions, Debbie pruning to control pests. How does that work?

Debbie Flower  23:55  

It works in a couple of ways. As with hackberry, it opens the plant up that allows the beneficial insects that are going to come in and eat the scale or lay their babies in the scale. They functionally control the scale for us. I was looking at a rose recently at my son's house and happy that I had helped my daughter-in-law prune it, because it was full of aphids. And that happens commonly in spring when we have lots of new growth. And had we left it as dense as it was previous to our pruning, it had been shorn, so it had been randomly cut into what one of my professors at Rutgers called "hockey pucks and meatballs", geometric shapes, a round ball, with no attention paid to how the plant really grew. So we went in, and as you do with the rose, cleaned out the center, took out the oldest canes, the thickest ones down at the center, and  left a ring around the outside of a few of those, and then cut it back at the top. So the new growth is very attractive to the sucking insects, the aphids being the sucking insects, and they are now on that plant. But there were also adult lady beetles, lady beetle larva and lacewing larvae in that plant. And those three are consuming those aphids. So the balance of good bug to bad bug is pretty good on that plant right now. And had it been more congested, the lady beetles and lacewings could not have gotten in there to eat those aphids.

Farmer Fred  25:32  

Alright, so opening up a plant, give us a bird's eye view, if you will, for the good guys, who are flying in and can spot something.

Debbie Flower  25:40  

Exactly, yes. And then another way of pruning to remove pests is to actually physically cut them off. In parts of the country, we have bagworms. And they actually make a bag out of their own, sort of like spider web stuff, webbing material, and live inside of there and consume plant material, protected by this bag. Well, you can just go out - they're typically at the end in the young growth - you can just go out and cut the whole tip of the branch off and either put it in your GreenWaste or put it in a soapy water container and that will kill those those pests.

Farmer Fred  26:20  

Another springtime pest that does the same thing, is the redhumped caterpillar. And you can usually spot them massed on the underside of  many different trees and shrubs. And the easiest control method is to cut off the branch where you see them and put it in the trash.

Debbie Flower  26:34  

Right. I did that similar thing with aphids on a honeysuckle, an ornamental honeysuckle growing on a patio cover. And the new growth in spring was so full of aphids that all the leaves were distorted when it gets to that level. Even though those tips of those branches were out there where the beneficials could get to it. But when it got to that level, I just cut the tips off and put them in my GreenWaste can.

Farmer Fred  26:57  

There you go. A good quick tip: use your pruning shears as a pest control weapon.

Debbie Flower  27:02  

It works. It sure does.

Farmer Fred  27:04  

Debbie Flower, we're here in your garden. Thanks so much.

Debbie Flower  27:07  

You're welcome.

Farmer Fred  27:12  

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