Jump to content
The Corroboree
Sign in to follow this  
Bongchitis

Native Terrarium Plants

Recommended Posts

Hi All,

I have tried repeatadly to grow grafted and ungrafted cacti at work but the light levels are sooooo crap that everything I have tried so far has died or etoliated to the point of rediculous.......so I am going to try a terrarium.

A quick UTFSE provided many mushroom posts but I will not tempt fate (at work) and I was kind of hoping that some of you guys had some experience with Aussie natives.....or at least hardy and easily grown ones.

I would also love to have a flowering plant in there but I haven't actually seen a terrarium with flowers in it.

Anybody got any ideas...........better still, any specimens?

Happy to swap $$$ or cacti.

Thanks everyone and cheers..............Bongchitis

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Did you try good sized loph grafts on well developed Trich. stocks bongchitis? No joy eh? :angry: The pebble/dumpling like, ground dwelling cactus I reckon would be the best bet, but you know that hehe :)

With the terrarium idea, you are getting the extra RH but wont you run into the same lighting issues...are you planning on having it lit?

Maybe in an unlit terrarium interesting lichens on rocks with an occasional reishi colonised log could be possible, scattered with some delicate ground dwelling rainforest herbs?? (Guessing it'll stay coolish, so prob cool moist temperate rainforest, ground dwelling species)

How about things like Drosera spp (Sundews) and the likes? I've seen them in well lit places, though also beneath shaded Eucalypts and under storey shrubs. Possibly even things like the delicate chocolate lillies and some various low light orchids? But along those lines things will be pretty dull until flowering times hehe :D a strappy leaf here or there.

Edited by gerbil

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To add to gerbil's post, those were some good ideas, also you could try and get some club mosses like Lycopodium sp. & Selaginella sp. they get very strange flower type things on them, whilst I don't think they are strictly flowers [correct me if I am wrong] as they are primitive forms of plants. Also so nice miniture ferns might be nice if you can find them species like Lindsaea, Hymenophyllum & Grammitis spring to mind.

Sorry I don't have any to offer, thought I would pitch in on ideas though :wink:

Actually I am attemting to cultivate some native Drosera peltata 'sundew' for pest control and they have a pretty little flower and a branched little stems for catching and eating insects :wub:, though I think they die off in summer? Will try and transplant a few for you as they grow like mad in my backyard and have got a few I am trialling, they aern't dead but I wouldn't say they are they healthiest plants I have seen. Still it's a project I am trialling and they have caught some fungus gnats already mwahahahah!!!!

Edited by Phosphene_Dream

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

not native.. but coleus might do ok in a terrarium... oh, i forgot... i can send u some seeds if u want... but buying a plant will be much faster.

Edited by XipeTotec

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah thanks guys,

Gerbil >>> Yeah the same light issues would arise but I guess having some kind of rainforest plant that fit the light/humidity profile is what I am thinking of.

Shroomy >>> Aren't terrariums cool any more? Thanks for the offer of seeds but they are pretty easy to come by, I didn't think of coleus at all.

Phosgene >>> I like the lily and lychen and fern ideas. Thankyou for the species names, it gives me a great start.

I really thought I could get a cacti to grow on my desk, short of having a compact fluro in a lamp hovering inches above the cacti, I have tried just about everything. My company are OHS mad so personal electrical devices are not really permitted.

First I tried a baby scop that just etoliated and fell over, then a pedro that suffered my wrath after a hard day with the boss, then 2 forms of Rebutia grafted to opuntia......the opuntia rejected them after 3 months inside.....and then a basic Echinopsis hybrid that is sort of sickly. I am hesitant to try a loph in case someone recognises it.

Thanks again peeps but if there are any other ideas then send them through.

I love this joint!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think most bromeloids would be OK with sketchy lighting.

I have a couple different fern specie that absolutely LOVE the low light and cooler area that is my basement. Seems to be the only plants I can keep healthy down here without artificial lighting...........

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

How about installing a nice downlight somewhere?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As a side note I saw some nice healthy pots of Selaginella sp. at Bunnings today. Not sure if it was a native, actually I think it wasn't didn't have a close look. Still, nice looking healthy plants and obviously easy to get if you can pick them up at Bunnings.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

terrariums are cool... it's 30 year old Time Life gardening books that aren't :lol:

A lot of nurseries and markets have people selling those crazy "air plant" things... they don't really seem to care about anything like normal light levels, as long as they get the odd squirt of water.

Ferns etc, if they occur in your area, can often be had for nothing by snipping a lil spore bearing leaf material from something in a NON protected area, then either letting it spore into containment or directly onto soil, and keep the fingers crossed.

Coleus does like low light but more in the sense of filtered light than shithouse light... any I try to keep in the "wrong" light quicky stretch, go too juicy in the stems, leaves go very dark and then begin to bleach, etc... and you need a bit of fairly strong but "red spectrum" light to bring out their best colours. But they can certainly look stunning when you get the right kind of "low light" on them.. probably worth a shot, theyre cheap as chips anyway. Some of the Plectranthus etc might be ok for a while too.

If you want "greenlife" at any cost, maybe check out the darkest, wettest recessed of your plant collection or the local nursery or a bonsai shop and get a nice clump of clean healthy moss... seems to help if you pinch a lil of the soil beneath too, but I think that's just a humate related thing. Just a lil pot of moss you can sprinkle with water and love and pat now and then... make a tiny sign that says "keep off the grass" or something. Some of the Cyperus species around here see mto get on quite well in the bottom layers of dense dark old rainforest creeklines etc... from the little nutgrasses and spidergrass up to the rotunda, course that might be a spectrum thing too.

Native things it gets a little harder as most native stock around nurseries etc is marketed towards "low maintenance landscape" and "Waterwise" so dark and dank conditions are not exactly being catered for too often. maybe look at water plants, though I think a lot of those survive hanging out in shade most of the time because they do get saturated with direct light for at least an hour or two a day. Reveg people tend to deal in grasses and trees that can take rough treatment rather than needing a quiet, moist little nook somewhere. Anything that originates on the forest floor in my neck of the woods tends to start heading skywards pretty quickly and often with thorns attached, or it stays a small, unremarkable specimen that throws out a couple of tiny flowers once in a while. So if you don't mind a wombat berry climbing up your monitor then maybe there are some natives for you :P Or there's epiphytic things... I'm not sure what would happen if you left an elkhorn pup growing on its back, I guess if drainage was great but humidity was up it'd be happy enough. they can certainly survive in trays when grown from spores for quite a while, though anyone I know that has grown em yoinked them up onto tasteful looking bits of scrub wood pretty quickly so I don't know how long they can stay like that. Cycads, some figs, monsteria etc all go passably well in shade too.

I have a fair few little "wrigglers" for something we call goats head vine around here, I can send you a couple and see if they live.. got pics somewhere.. epiphytic climber thing with nice thick glossy leaves, doesn't bitch about light levels as long as it has something woody and old to get its teeth into, or cocopeat with a little bit of compost mixed in. The tiny plantlets and the mature plant differ only in size, the form and foliage is the same... so when it gets too big you can take it home and bring in another one. Let me know if you want one.

Can you get some of the plants n cactus you have tried before, and mark two specimens as workmates.. then rotate em, take it home on friday and bring in the other one on monday?Some real houseplant compulsives spend half their free time rotating obscure plants to keep them all looking perfect and making treehuggers like us wonder "how the fuck does she get that to grow in here?". Certainly isn't something I'd do with any of my favourites, but a couple of bunnings cheapies would be alright. Some of that glued together gravel business for easier transport (dontya love that stuff, classy or what)

Or maybe grow decorative slimes in protest ... fill a pretty jar with perlite and glucose, sneeze into it, and wait... and if they ever give you the shits at work, you can leave the jar open and get the rest of the week to yourself cos they'll all be off work with your homebrew strain of killer germs :P

I gave up the office routine a while ago now, and to be honest I don't think I could spend a whole week hanging out anywhere that some of the toughest forms of plantlife can't be healthy in... I used to look at the rental plants at a few former workplaces and it's almost alarming how quickly they start to drop dead, even when light, temp, water etc are all technically "healthy", especially those closer to the supporting columns... bad vibes, groovy cats.

Or you could set up a webcam at home looking at your plants and then perv on em when you're meant to be working :lol:

VM

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×