Growing plants in jars on the windowsill.
Making the most of Water
I have Chris, my hydroponic friend visiting me this week.
Chris has spent a lot of time messing around with houseplant cuttings (she
calls is studying) and finding out the best methods of growing new plants in
jars of water. Chris has found that a
lot of plants will grow quite happily in a container on the windowsill.
“I visit loads of people who don’t do gardening or like
getting their finger nails dirty, Chris tells me. “They will almost certainly
have a busy lizzie or some other house plant sitting in a jam jar on the
kitchen windowsill with some roots sticking out of the murky water.” She says.
I have done that
myself and even killed a lot of bare rooted trees and herb plants by leaving
them outside in buckets for too long. “Certain
plants do really well in water and having them inside in the warm promotes root
growth.” Chris is telling me why my trees die in a bucket outside “In winter
when the plants and trees are dormant they don’t take up water and there isn’t
any drainage so the roots don’t get oxygen and rot.” She continues. “Cut flowers are always destined to rot too as
these are dying from the moment you put them in the water.
Beneficial to health
Chris continues to tell me more about houseplants “Certain
plants are really beneficial to your health, some plants purify the air and
visually they can be very relaxing.”
Hydroponics is a great way to grow loads of different types of plants
and you don’t have the problem or getting soil on the windowsills, you can even
grow your old vegetable cutting like the top of carrots or celery. There are
three things plants need, Water, Nutrients and something to hold the plant up!
Normally this would be the job of the soil but in hydroponics for the home we
can just use an old jar.” Chris has done
loads of ‘testing’ and found that slightly opaque colours work the best. “I’ve
tried most types of empty beer bottles and I think the slight tan colour is the
best for some reason, maybe it’s because I leave a bit of the beer in the
bottom of the bottle!” The narrow neck
of beer bottles also helps to support the plants”
How it works
Chris tells me more about how hydroponics works. “The plants
don’t really need soil, that’s just for holding the plants upright. If you use well water or rainwater then this
has all of the trace elements and oxygen in it for healthy root growth. Try and avoid tap water as this is usually
chlorinated and has been stripped of all of its goodness.” Chris continues “Take cuttings of your
favourite houseplants and herbs, do this in the same way that you would take
any cutting by slicing through the stem just below a node, this is where the
biggest concentration of rooting hormones is in a plant. When you do take the cutting, ensure that all
of the leaves have been removed from the stems that will be below the water
level. You can even transfer small
plants that have been grown in soil into water, all that is needed is to clean
the roots first.”
Chris also tells me about how to make the jar or bottle more
decorative. “You can add all sorts of decoration into the container, small
pebbles vermiculite, sand, gravel, pumice, wood fibre, but it’s all for
decoration really.”
Pesticide free
One of the things that attracts Chris to this way of growing
is the fact that it eliminates the need for pesticides “Most pest and diseases
come from the soil so thuis eliminates the problem. Also research has shown
that growing plants in this method saves water as it can be regulated so there
is no loss. Some methods are used
commercially for decorative and edible crops, some roots don’t sit in water,
they are just dangling into containers that either have a very high humidity
for the roots to absorb the moisture or the roots are sprayed with a fine water
mist to ensure that they don’t rot. The methods are very imaginative and they
work, some plants are even grown in sealed units and fed carbon dioxide. The
crop yields can be far greater grown in this way and the idea is spreading
around the world very quickly,” Chris
enthuses.
Easy maintenance
In the home though it’s a bit more basic and all I would
recommend is to change the water a few times a year to stop too much algae growing,
there shouldn’t be any small from the water so it only needs changing when
about half of the water in the container has evaporated.” Chris tells me some
of the best plants to grow in this way.
“There are some really easy to grow variety of houseplants such as the
bussie lizzy, spider plants, ivy, bamboo, impatiens, begonias, summer bedding
plants like petunias, the list is long, try experimenting with some of your
favourites, you could even try perennials or shrub cuttings. You could even grow most herbs too and
harvest the leaves as they grow, but after a year they will either need
planting in the garden or throwing onto the compost heap, but not before you
have taken cuttings and started the whole process again.”
“This type of growing has been around since the 15th
century, Chris concludes, it’s increasing in popularity now and there is a lot
of investment and scientific research ongoing to find the best methods of
growing. It has a lot of advantages but
also a few disadvantages such as high energy use to construct the growing units
on a commercial level. Just before we
sit down for tea, Chris concludes by saying “The rice fields in China have got
it just about right!”
