Curry Tree, Kaffir Lime, Culantro

Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. One of our long time followers, Vangie, from Tokoyo had the 5th entry that was the correct answer - the angel was sitting next to a big clump of chives. I didn't expect anyone to recognize the variety, but for those who asked, it is 'Grolau,' a commercial and robust variety from Richters. Vangie's Valentine box was mailed to her mother who lives in Arkansas.

Here's what the garden looks like today (above). And  yesterday. And the day before. All week it's been frozen. It all looks pretty bleak.

Some of the plants I'm growing: Allspice, Cinnamon, Kaffir Lime, Curry Tree and others.

But if I step back just a few feet from that view, here's what I can see, so I thought I'd write about some of the indoor plants I grow. I'm working on my Keynote presentation on Cutting Edge Plants that I'll be presenting to the Michigan Herb Associates conference in Michigan next month and will use some of the photos of the plants you see here.

Dancing Tea Plant (Codariocalys motorius X Ohashi leguminosae)

Some of the plants I grow are rather hard to come by, such as the Udorn Dancing Tea, above. This plant is known for its ability to move when sound is nearby. If you search YouTube for the words, "Dancing Tea" you'll find videos of a dancing tea with a radio nearby playing music. The top leaflets of the plant, "dance" in motion with music (or speaking). It's a medicinal tea plant from Thailand and is not the happiest of plants indoors but so far is hanging on. It likes part shade in the herb bed in summer.
 

This is an unusual bush variety of Piper nigrum from Thailand. Most black peppers are vines.

The black pepper plant has pepper berries about to start ripening. Yes, the same peppercorns you use when you sprinkle black pepper on your breakfast eggs.

True Curry Tree (Murraya koenigii) is used in Indian cooking and usually fried in hot oil.

I learned to appreciate the curry tree when I was in India a few years ago. It's essential to many Indian dishes.

Leaves of Kaffir Lime (Citrus hystrix) are used in cooking.

Kaffir lime isn't especially rare but it's also not a common houseplant. It will accept regular pruning and you can freeze the leaves for use later, although the fresh ones are best. I learned to use kaffir lime leaves in both cooked and uncooked dishes when at the Bopai Cooking School in Bangkok.

Allspice and Lemon Bay Rum

The allspice and bay rum will grow into small trees, about the size of a small redbud tree or a large lilac bush but I keep mine pruned to indoor size. In the summer they go outdoors on the deck. I like to crush the leaves and season dishes, especially desserts or whipped cream.

Culantro (Eryngium foetidum), also known as Vietnamese Coriander

You'll find the leaves of culantro next to a dish of pho in a Vietnamese restaurant. The plant is native to the Americas but it has found its way into many Asian countries' cuisines. It requires constant moisture from underneath and heavy shade. It's a biennial and you can see the seed clusters at the top so I'll save seed and replant. If you like cilantro, you will also like culantro, and like cilantro, is used fresh, not cooked.

There are quite a few more plants in another plant window, cinnamon, Okinawa spinach, lemongrass, and others, but you might find these interesting:

 I brought this Pin Cushion Plant (Nertera granadensi) back from Florida.

Money Tree (Pachira aquatica), once the source of paper for currency in Asian countries.

Every time I write about tropical or indoor plants in my newspaper columns I receive questions about keeping them insect free. Here's what I use, which is a kind of super fine oil spray. I take my plants outdoors about once a month and spray them all, stems, leaves, tops of soil and edges of plants, with the oil spray at the rate recommended on the label. The oil isn't toxic to humans or pets, is approved for organic uses, and simply smothers the insects and their eggs, including: white fly, scale insect, red spider and mealy bugs.

It's only available in quarts and will make about 12 gallons of spray (as I recall). There are 2 mail order sources that I know of: http://www.pestproducts.com/ultrafine.htm and Green Island Distributors.

Nearly all of my plants are seasoning or food plants, although the Money Tree and Pincushion Plants aren't. Here's one more, that as far as I know isn't edible, although it does eat other things itself, like flies and gnats.

This is in the Nepenthaceae plant family. The little pitchers should be kept half full of water to help attract insects.

So while the snow melts, I'm looking indoors at the greenery and life that will eventually move outdoors. I'm glad there are people who like snow and winter. White has never been a favorite color and falling down and sliding down the driveway on my backside has never been a favorite activity, either. Happy gardening!

Segue, More Ice

The word, segue, comes from Italian, and literally means, follow. So this seems a good transition, a good segue, to follow ice sculptures in the previous post, with more ice.

I'm in central Florida (where it's 20 degrees tonight, which makes neither the locals nor us tourists very happy). I visited the Tropical Plant Industry Exposition in Ft. Lauderdale, along with a Garden Writers of America Regional meeting, held at the Expo. The tropical plant Expo is a large trade show with all kinds of wholesale plant people from across Florida and lots from the East and West Coasts, as well. It's where people come to see what's new to the industry this year, and where wholesalers get new accounts for their plants. The ice sculpture, above, was part of a booth promoting the Just Add Ice Orchids, which you may have noticed in stores already. Their sales gimmick is to point out that orchids are tough plants and easy to grow. So easy, in fact, that all you have to do is add 3 or 4 ice cubes on the top of the pot once a week!

Two large, healthy orchids, frozen in solid ice, as part of the display. No, they won't survive when thawed out.

They had frozen a couple of large orchids in ice as part of their display, which I thought was going a bit overboard, but it was eye catching. Our long time acquaintance, P. Allen Smith was there to promote the orchids and sign some books. I think he's the official spokesperson for the Just Add Ice series. Chris Bytes was one of our speakers at the Garden Writers' Regional, speaking on using videos for business promotion.

P. Allen Smith with Chris Bytes, Editor of GrowerTalks Magazine and Ball Red Book. I did some writing for Chris a few years back in the Red Book.

The show has always been palms, blooming plants, planters, soil, bamboo... all those plants you think of as tropical. And they were here, also, but what surprised even the long time booth folks, was how fast orchids have become popular. In fact, the 2 unintentional themes of this year's show, was plant walls and orchids. (More about plant walls later).

There were orchids in all sizes and price ranges

The trade show had 22 rows across the auditorium, with about 12 or 15 booths on each side of the 22 aisles; that's a lot of plant displays! But everyone was talking about how the orchids had taken over this year. And the one everyone wanted was a new blue one. (For comparison, the orchids above retail for about $12; the fancy blue ones were going for $40).

But even this one wasn't the bluest of the blues.

This one, below, won one of the prizes for best in show this year.

The nursery producing these orchids (below) also won an award for best in show. Their orchids (sorry, I'm not up on my orchid varieties - remember, I grow plants I can eat, were spectacular waterfall orchids.

You can't tell it from this photo, but this is a 12 ft high wall of orchids!

My apologies for the poor photo quality. I am trying out my new smartphone's photo capabilities; I'm disappointed in the quality. However, hopefully you can see what amazingly long stems of flowers these orchids have, many of them 2 ft long or more!

The anthurium runway. The grower is from Germany and he had some spectacular plants.

There was an anthurium grower at the show, showing off new color introductions in anthuriums. Lots of the booths try to put on a big splash to draw attention and sell their plants. Bringing P. Allen Smith, for example. This grower hired models and had a runway, lights and music, putting on a show with the girls showcasing bouquets of the anthuriums.

Sorry one more time, for the poor photo quality.

And the second big theme at the show (and apparently at other plant shows this year) is plant walls. Here are a couple of previews of more to come.

I'll stay in Florida for a few more days, hopefully finding somewhere that is warmer than the weather in Bradenton is tonight. Hope it's warm where you are, too.