It is springtime for plants in the greenhouse, including aquatic plants which are adapted to having their roots always damp or entirely submerged in water. Before plants get too far into the new spring season, now is a good time to address the overgrown roots from last season. One option for an overgrown plant is to divided it into two parts; or, the root ball can be cut down to a smaller size; or, more simply, a plant might be moved into a larger pot. Today, I was directed to use all three techniques for some of the aquatic plants. Umbrella sedge Cyperus alternifolius A clean tank and water, with repotted plants at the far end With the plants removed from the tank for repotting, it was an opportunity to replace the murky water in the open tank. But, it is not only the tank water needing to be replaced. The majority of the dirty water sits in a large reservoir below the tank. A pump in the reservoir pushes water up into the tank to find its way back down through drain holes. Over...
How do plants do it... ...some stand-off-ish plants have figured out how to keep their distance from each other. They have evolved clever adaptations - sharp elbows - to keep their neighbors away. This behavior is important for survival, especially in the desert where plants compete for water. I have noticed this phenomenon especially when I've been on a plane flying low over the desert. Where there are plants, they are uniformly distributed but not touching each other. They don't form clumps. They seem to know how far apart to grow. How is that? Why is it these desert plants don't form clumps? They weren't planted this way on purpose (Palm Springs, CA). It seems so obvious to me now that I recognize what is going on, but it took me a few years of hiking in the desert to be mentally conscious of how widely separated, but yet uniformly distributed in the landscape many plants seem to be. How is it that plants are able to keep what appears to be a relatively uniform dis...