All you need to know to make your house green and blossoming
I confess with all honesty that I’m a careless gardener – all my plants die sooner or later, but the former happens more often. However this doesn’t stop me from buying flowers at shops, nipping shoots off the plants growing in my friends’ houses, and trying to grow similar plants in my own home.
Sometimes, especially in the spring and autumn, I suddenly become obsessed with a desire to become a true gardener and get closer to nature (even taking care of small plants). I then start digging for all the possible literature on the topic and shower my “pets” with fertilizers, washing and polishing their leaves. Yet in a week or two, all my enthusiasm fades away, along with the abandoned flowers.
A friend of mine, Julia, a passionate gardener who has a real rain forest of various plants at her place, names my lack of persistence as the main reason for my misfortunes. The guidelines for beginning gardeners are a piece of cake, according to her.
“Don’t place the plants in drafty places, water them – don’t flood them, and try to love them.” Those are the recommendations she gave me. And I agreed with her. So if you are ready to dig into the mud, moss, peat, and fertilizers to make unremarkable stems blossom and even bring fruit – let’s get started.
Floral shopping
If you decided to add some new houseplants to your collection, you can ask to get their shoots, yet it well may be that your friends aren’t interested in gardening or just don’t have the species you want.
The widest selection of plants can be surely found at a specialized flower shops. There are several types in Kyiv.
Among the first are simple kiosks and flower salons, like Green Gallery or Kvitkova Vanil (Flower Vanilla) that mostly specialize on designing flower bunches and decoration. Though the assortment of plants at such shops can be wide enough for beginners, featuring several basic species of violets, kalanchoe or spathiphyllum, yet it won’t satisfy more advanced gardeners.
The second option is a flower department at a supermarket like Nova Liniya (New Line), MasterOK! or Epitsenter (Epicenter).
The choice is wider there, yet you run the risk of purchasing a sick plant. Such risks exist whenever you’re shopping for plants, but in shops that specialize solely in houseplants, such a risk is significantly lower.
When I mention supermarkets, I mean I don’t recommend buying flowers at regular supermarkets at all – my acquaintances interested in gardening all complain about ticks on the plants they’ve bought there, and other diseases that infected other plants in their homes.
In any case, seeing the unhealthy look of such flowers should probably prevent you from buying them anyway.
The third and the best possibility of floral shopping is to visit a floral store that sells everything from seeds and pots to New Year trees and garden sculptures.
The most recommended is a store Edelweiss, located near Petrivka metro station. As a rule, once a month it offers a fresh supply of houseplants: simple and undemanding (cacti, violets, fichus, ivy, aloe) as well as whimsical exotic species, like orchids, bamboo, jasmine, bonsai and palms.
Prices in all shops are the same and vary only from one to five hryvnia.
Violets will cost you around Hr 20 to Hr 25, orchids around Hr 90 depending on the type, bonsai – now extremely fashionable to have as a part of your interior decor – will cost you around Hr 60 to Hr 100, depending on the type of tree and its age.
Seeds usually cost between one hryvnia, for simple plants and vegetables, to 17 hryvnia and higher for rare examples and unusual colors.
Another good place for buying houseplants is the store at the Central Botanical Gardens.
Through the beginning of spring and autumn, a cheaper option is to bargain with the sellers of an improvised market at the gates of the Botanical Gardens near Universitet metro station.
The cheaper and seemingly easier way of buying plants is to order them through the Inteflora company catalogue.
The first step is to call them or send an e-mail, register, and request a catalogue. Then throughout the year, you will receive information on the new assortment and seasonal sales. In addition to houseplants and seeds, you can also order outdoor plants like roses and chrysanthemum at Interflora.
However the easiest is not always the best – once one of my friends had to wait for a month for the plants and seeds he ordered. That was only a part of the trouble – after opening the package, he didn’t find the species that he had been waiting for.
During the pre-holiday season, you can come across advantages and disadvantages when it comes to buying houseplants. Advantages are some plants go for sale (hyacinth for Hr 1 at Edelweiss before Women’s Day for example), and disadvantages being that some plants, increase in price.
Though the plants are more expensive there, you can ask for advice of professional gardeners, choose among rare species, and take down contacts of stores and gardeners that can be of help in future.
Kvitkova Vanil (15 Tolstoho, 244-2200)
Green Gallery (3 Pyrohova, 234-3856)
Edelweiss (24B Moskovskiy Prospekt)
Ukraflora (2A Salutna, 400-3186)
Epitsentr (40 Hryhorenko, 561-2750)
Fermer (55/20 Mezhyhirska, 417-31-75)
Nova Liniya (168 Kharkivske Shose, 564-1493)
Megaflora (1B Krainia, 594-7092)
Vash Sad (43 Tyraspilska)
Interflora (332-7312, [email protected])
Tavia (http://tavia.kiev.ua/shop/, 502-1210)
Stylish accessory
Houseplants were usually associated in my mind with dusty windowsills, yet strolling around the city the other day, I was wondering why people brighten themselves only with jewelry – flowers can be a nice accessory as well.
For that reason, especially in the spring and summer, plants will grow fantastically through forced bulbs or field flowers like daisies, blue-bonnets or poppy.
In fact you can design any combination your imagination can produce. Just put a small bunch of narcissus into your bag so that the flowers will stick out nicely, or set a combination of lilies, hyacinth or crocus to your jacket and a special spring look is guaranteed.
Such plants can make a magnificent flower bed right at your apartment and a source for such flower accessories as well, which is easier then buying a whole bunch for the sake of a pair of flowers to pin to your jacket.
Taking care of your plants
After buying a plant, the first thing to do is to prepare the new pot with a drainage, fitting soil, and fertilizers. The pot should be chosen considering the type of plant you have (violets need wider and shallower pots, while laurenti prefer narrow oblong pots); the packs of soil are usually signed with the recommended plants, yet if you are not sure about the type you need take a universal mixture.
If you are growing orchids you will also need moss that should be put into the soil mixture or on the bottom of a pot, depending on your plant’s type and the amount of moisture it needs.
Fertilizers can be liquid and dry, which are dissolved in water before usage and are considered more effective. Among recommended the fertilizers for orchids are Pokon, which can be used both for roots and leaves. Florovit is good for violets, as well as for other simple plants.
If your plant has become a victim of insects, try to buy some chemicals, like Apollo, Caesar or Mospilan. To protect your plants against various insects, the soil should be sterilized before planting. However there is another option, which is becoming popular among the gardeners – a peat tablet, since peat prevents insects from multiplying. Such tablets cost next to nothing – Hr 12 per pack (a pack contains twenty tablets). The tablets are good for small shoots and later on, its contents can be put into the pot while planting the young flower into soil.
Among the needed equipment for advanced gardeners is also a fitolamp (Polylux, Lumen or Osram Flora) that will increase the growth of your plants, especially exotic ones. Such lamps can be bought at any building materials store and will cost you around Hr 10 to Hr 20.
For the really devoted gardeners, I would also recommend building a greenhouse. If you have a separate house and enough land around to place a large construction, you can buy a ready made greenhouse for Hr 1,400 at the Epitsentr hardware supermarket.
Otherwise you can make a small greenhouse – metal, plastic or wooden bars covered with polyethylene film and equipped with a fitolamp – by yourselves. Such a greenhouse will be the best option for growing orchids and other exotics which need lots of light, moisture and warmth.
